nder bar with a surly,
defiant face.

Ralph made no retort. Fogg did, indeed, know his business, if he was
only minded to attend to it. He was somewhat set and old-fashioned in
his ways, and he had grown up in the service from wiper.

Ralph recalled Griscom's warning. It was not pleasant to run two
hundred miles with a grumpy cab comrade. Ralph wished they had given
him some other helper. However, he reasoned that even a crack fireman
might be proud of a regular run on No. 999, and he did not believe
that Fogg would hurt his own chances by any tactics that might delay
them.

The landscape drifted by swiftly and more swiftly, as Ralph gave the
locomotive full head. A rare enthusiasm and buoyancy came into the
situation. There was something fascinating in the breathless rush, the
superb power and steadiness of the crack machine, so easy of control
that she was a marvel of mechanical genius and perfection.

Like a panorama the scenery flashed by, and in rapid mental panorama
Ralph reviewed the glowing and stirring events of his young life,
which in a few brief months had carried him from his menial task as an
engine wiper up to the present position which he cherished so
proudly.

Ralph was a railroader by inheritance as well as predilection. His
father had been a pioneer in the beginning of the Great Northern.
After he died, through the manipulations of an unworthy village
magnate named Gasper Farrington, his widow and son found themselves at
the mercy of that heartless schemer, who held a mortgage on their
little home.

In the first volume of the present series, entitled "Ralph of the
Roundhouse," it was told how Ralph left school to earn a living and
help his self-sacrificing mother in her poverty.

Ralph got a job in the roundhouse, and held it, too, despite the
malicious efforts of Ike Slump, a ne'er-do-well who tried to undermine
him. Ralph became a favorite with the master mechanic of the road
through some remarkable railroad service in which he saved the
railroad shops from destruction by fire.

Step by step Ralph advanced, and the second volume of this series,
called "Ralph in the Switch Tower," showed how manly resolve, and
being right and doing right, enabled him to overcome his enemies and
compel old Farrington to release the fraudulent mortgage.
Incidentally, Ralph made many friends. He assisted a poor waif named
Van Sherwin to reach a position of comfort and honor, and was
instrumental in aiding a