"That's the boy. He's in jail with Cohen, now. They want to detain him as a witness. In Cohen's barn, hidden under some hay, we found two old locomotive whistles. He claims that he did not know they were there. The road detective, however, says if we can fasten the least real suspicion on Cohen and break up his fence, we will have rooted out this robbery evil, for the crowd he housed and encouraged to steal has scattered."
"Has Mr. Matthewson tried to overtake the wagon?"
"Yes, he has men out in pursuit. If we can recover those fittings, Fairbanks, it will be a glad day for me and a lucky one for you."
But with the arrest of Cohen, his release on bail, bound over to appear before the September grand jury, the affair seemed ended.
The little fellow, Teddy, could not, or would not tell, much and was also released. Ike Slump's crowd melted away, and Ike Slump, and his tramp friend, and Cohen's two horses and wagon, and the boxed-up brass fittings, had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed them up.
[CHAPTER XXIII--BARDON, THE INSPECTOR]
Matters dropped into a pleasant routine for Ralph, the two weeks succeeding his rather stormy introduction into active railroad life at the roundhouse of the Great Northern at Stanley Junction.
It was like a lull after the tempest. The youthful hoodlum gang that had been a menace to Ralph and the railroad company had been entirely broken up.
Tim Forgan was a changed man. He and the senior Slump had drifted apart, and the foreman's previous irascibility and suspicious gloom had departed. He was more brisk, natural and cheery, and Ralph believed and fervently hoped had given up the tippling habit which had at times made him a capricious slave to men and moods.
The lame helper had become a useful, pleasant chum to Ralph. There was not a day that he did not teach the novice some new and practical point in railroad experience.