“Your mother ill. Old trouble, but serious.
Come home at once.
“(Signed) B. Hopkins.”
There was the repeat back from the Shelby Junction operator, and then Silsby gave the “O. K.” and closed his key. Ralph, waiting for the backing in of the big eight-wheeler for Number 202, wondered if Mr. Hopkins was, after all, as case-hardened and hard-crusted as he appeared to be.
The supervisor was having domestic trouble. Perhaps he loved his mouse-like little wife, and his daughter, as well. These family troubles might be one present cause of the supervisor’s caustic remarks and his uncompromising attitude in railroad affairs.
“I was telling the G. M. the officials did not look at things from the men’s standpoint,” considered Ralph. “Perhaps the men ought to see things from the supervisor’s standpoint, too.”
CHAPTER XXII
THE THREAT DIRECT
Had Ralph Fairbanks not been standing just outside the telegraph office window he would not have obtained a certain bit of information which proved, later, to be most important.
He had heard the operator send Mr. Hopkins’ wire to his daughter, and he knew very well that the girl would quickly respond to his and her mother’s need. But Ralph was not at all expecting such a seemingly prompt response as followed.
The big illuminated clock in the train shed now pointed to a quarter to twelve. The long string of cars belonging to the Midnight Flyer had been backed in some time before and the gates had been opened for the passengers to swarm aboard. The berths were all made up, of course, and the passengers immediately went to bed.