Page:Ralph on the Railroad.djvu/477

Rh "And Mort Bemis?" added Ralph coolly. "Good-evening, gentlemen—what can I do for you?"

"Nervy!" sneered Slump—"but it won't last. It's what we're going to do that will interest you, Ralph Fairbanks."

Ralph looked over the enemy with a steadfast glance. They were certainly "dressed to kill." He noticed that their clothing was of the most expensive grade. For all that, it was disordered and ill-fitting.

They looked as they had not slept regularly for a week, and when they did, seemed to have made any old place their resting-spot. Their faces bore marks of dissipation.

Their whole bearing indicated that the money they had recently come into had helped them down the road of idleness and crime.

"We've come back to the Junction specially to see you," observed Bemis, sinking upon a sofa opposite their helpless prisoner.

"Yes, unfinished business, ha! ha!" jeered Ike Slump, looking mightily bad and vicious as he proceeded to light a cigarette. "We owe you one, as you'll perhaps remember. You put the police onto me."

Ralph had not done this. As the reader knows, it was the act of Van Sherwin. Ralph, however,