Page:Ralph on the Railroad.djvu/833

Rh Van and Zeph had been among the first to congratulate the friend to whom they owed so much, when, after a few months' service on accomodation runs, it was made known that Ralph had been appointed as engineer of No 999.

It was Limpy Joe, spending a happy vacation week with motherly, kind-hearted Mrs. Fairbanks, who led the cheering coterie whom Ralph had passed near his home as he left the Junction on his present run.

Of his old-time enemies, Ike Slump and Mort Bemis were in jail, the last Ralph had heard of them. There was a gang in his home town, however, whom Ralph had reason to fear. It was made up of men who had tried to cripple the Great Northern through an unjust strike. A man named Jim Evans had been one of the leaders. Fogg had sympathized with the strikers. Griscom and Ralph had routed the malcontents in a fair, open-handed battle of arguments and blows. Fogg had been reinstated by the road, but he had to go back on the promotion list, and his rancor was intense when he learned that Ralph had been chosen to a position superior to his own.

"They want young blood, the railroad nobs tell it," the disgruntled fireman had been heard to remark in his favorite tippling place on Railroad Street. "Humph! They'll have blood, and