Finally, exhausted after his mad work at the levers, Bortree had commenced a work of general destruction. When through, he had extinguished the lights and lapsed into a weak delirium in which the two railroad men had finally found him.
"There should always be a team at the limits tower," was Knight's ultimate comment on the affair.
"Yes," the master mechanic assented--"sickness, enmity, a burned-out wire, a dozen things might come up where one man would be helpless. If it is only a messenger, we must not again leave these important points at the mercy of chance and accident."
Ralph made a note of this suggestion. He determined when the right moment came to speak a good word for Young Slavin.
He had never been more tired and sleepy than when he reached home that morning.
Ralph ate a hurried breakfast. He explained only casually the happenings of the night to his mother. Getting to bed promptly, he put in ten hours of the solidest sleep that he had ever enjoyed.
He found his mother quite nervous and worried when he reported for his late afternoon dinner. Mrs. Fairbanks had learned from a neighbor of the startling occurrences of the previous night.
"I am all unstrung over this railroad business, Ralph," she said. "I would feel easier in my mind if you could transfer to some branch of the service where you were not constantly meeting these terrible dangers."
"What! my own dear mother going back on me in the midst of my ambitions!" cried Ralph in a tone of playful raillery. "Oh, surely, never! I hope you wouldn't advise me to follow old Farrington's grand suggestion--for his own benefit; get a clerical position at the general offices at Springfield, and--as he puts it--'be a gentleman.'"
"No, Ralph, I should not like to have you leave Stanley Junction, where you have made such a good record," responded Mrs. Fairbanks, "but think of the fearful responsibilities of your position."