"Quite by accident," replied Ralph. "I found Ike Slump. As near as I can figure it out, he and his tramp friend had a breakdown near Dover. The tramp appears to have got discouraged or frightened, cut away with Cohen's horses, sold them and decamped, leaving Ike in the lurch. Ike got the wagonload over into a ravine to hide it till he could raft the stuff to a distance, and dispose of it and disappear, too. I nipped his scheme just in time."
Matthewson appeared as glad to see Ralph as Forgan had been. He expressed the liveliest satisfaction at the contents of the report Ralph handed to him.
"I think this will be a final spoke in the wheel of Mr. Inspector Bardon," he said significantly. "Hope you attended to your writing and spelling in this report, Fairbanks?"
"Why so?" inquired Ralph.
"Because the president of the Great Northern is likely to see it before nightfall," announced Matthewson, with a grim chuckle.
The foreman and Ralph returned to the roundhouse. After a while Big Denny came in, full of animation and welcome. Ralph learned that Mrs. Slump was better, but hers was a sad household. The parents had about given up ever redeeming their scapegrace son from his evil ways, and the stricken mother insisted to her husband that they would never know good luck again until he gave up selling strong drink.
With a promise to come up to his house and see little Nora, "who so prettily says her prayers for you every night," Forgan told Ralph, the foreman allowed his friend to go home late in the afternoon.
That was a quiet, happy evening at the Fairbanks homestead.
It seemed to mother and son as though after a brave, patient struggle they had reached some sublime height, from which they could look back over all difficulties overcome, and forward to golden promises for the future.
Ralph valued the friends he had made in the railroad service and also the experience he had gained.