rt, Sam?
Good-bye. Shovel in the coal, lad," the speaker directed Ralph. "It's
a bad night for railroading, and we'll have a hard run to Dover."

Ralph applied himself to his duties at once. He opened the fire door,
and as the ruddy glow illuminated his face he was a picture pleasant
to behold.

Muscular, healthy, in love with his work, friendly, earnest and
accommodating, Ralph Fairbanks was a favorite with every fair-minded
railroad man on the Great Northern who knew him.

Ralph had lived at Stanley Junction nearly all of his life. His early
experiences in railroading have been related in the first volume of
the present series, entitled "Ralph of the Roundhouse."

Ralph's father had been one of the pioneers who helped to build the
Great Northern. When he died, however, it was found that the twenty
thousand dollars' worth of stock in the road he was supposed to own
had mysteriously disappeared.

Further, his home was mortgaged to old Gasper Farrington, a wealthy
magnate of the village. This person seemed to have but one object in
life; to drive the widow Fairbanks and her son from Stanley Junction.

Ralph one day overheard Farrington threaten to foreclose a mortgage,
and the youth suddenly realized his responsibilities. Leaving school,
he secured a job in the roundhouse at Stanley Junction. Here,
notwithstanding the plots, hatred and malice of a worthless,
good-for-nothing fellow named Ike Slump, whose place he took, Ralph
made fine progress. He saved the railroad shops from wholesale
destruction, by assisting John Griscom to run an engine into the
flames and drive a car of powder out of the way. For this brave deed
Ralph secured the friendship of the master mechanic of the road and
was promoted to the position of junior leverman.

In the second volume of this series, entitled "Ralph in the Switch
Tower," another vivid phase of his ability and merit has been
depicted. He rendered signal service in saving a special from disaster
and prevented a treasure train from being looted by thieves.

Among the thieves was his old-time enemy, Ike Slump, and a crony of
his named Mort Bemis. They had been hired by Farrington to harass
Ralph in every way possible. Ralph had searched for the motive to the
old man's animosity.

He learned that Farrington had appropriated his father's railroad
stock on an illegal technicality, and that the mortgage on their
homestead had once been paid by Mr. Fairbanks.

Once knowing this, R