happened?"

"Nothing alarming," answered Clark reassuringly, "only--I'm glad I
happened to be here."

Ralph's mouth and throat seemed burning up. The water he drank only
partially allayed his frantic thirst. It was with great difficulty
that he could arouse himself from a lethargy that seemed to completely
paralyze both body and mind. As the moments passed, however, he
succeeded in rallying into something like normal. But as yet he was
unable to fully understand just what had happened.

"He needs something to stimulate him," declared the conductor, and
stepping into the cab he hastily ransacked the fireman's bunker.
"Aha!"

His tones announced a discovery--likewise a suspicion. He had
unearthed two flasks of liquor, one only partly filled.

"Not for me," said Ralph, waving back the conductor, who evidently was
intent on administering a stimulant. "Liquor!" he cried, suddenly
bracing up now. "Fogg never brought it aboard. It's some plot! Why!"
he exclaimed, in sudden enlightenment, "I see it all, clear as day."

What Ralph saw, all hands in the cab soon realized within the ensuing
ten minutes. When they had aroused Fogg, there followed animated
theory, discovery and conviction. Not one of them doubted but that
some enemy had sneaked aboard of the locomotive while it was
sidetracked at noon at Riverton and had put some drug in the jar of
coffee. They found a suspicious dark sediment at the bottom of the
jar.

"Black Hands--mark it down," observed Fogg. "Whoever did it, also
placed those flasks of liquor in my bunker. See the label on them?
They come from a place in Riverton I never was in. The scoundrels
aimed to have us found in the cab, just as we have been, and a report
go in that the heat and too much liquor had crippled us from making
the run."

"You've struck it, Fogg," assented the conductor. "Just stow that jar
and those two flasks in a safe place. I'll have our special agent
Adair, the road detective, find out who bought that liquor. No need
of any blabbing to the general public. Are you able to complete the
run, Fairbanks?"

"Certainly," reported Ralph, exercising arms and feet vigorously to
restore their circulation. Fogg was still dazed and weak. He had drunk
more of the coffee than Ralph. Besides, being the older of the two, he
did not shake off the effects of the narcotic so readily as the young
engineer.

"I'll help fire--I know how to," declared Clark.

"You know how to stop an engine, too