CHAPTER III
A GOOD DEAL TO THINK OF
It was growing dusk as Ralph Fairbanks left the bungalow occupied by the divisional supervisor and his family. The young fellow felt some little disappointment at not seeing Cherry again. He believed that the girl’s mother had deliberately kept her from coming back into the library where the dispatcher had been talking with Barton Hopkins.
“Not that I wanted to talk with the super,” considered Ralph, as he found his way out of the house and closed the door behind him. “I would much rather have not done so. He’s got an eye as cold as ice. I wonder if he wasn’t hatching something in his keen brain right then to make our department more efficient,” and Ralph chuckled grimly.
“Oh, well, I guess I am out of his line, come to think of it. But he is certainly going to come a cropper before he gets through in Rockton. When the Brotherhoods begin to take notice of him, the Great Northern will lose its——Hullo! What’s this?”
As he came out through the gateway he saw several shadowy figures across the street. The street lamps were not yet lighted in this block and it was just dark enough for those figures Ralph saw to seem uncertain.
Of course, he had no expectation of being followed. He had no quarrel with any branch of the union men. In fact, most of the employees on the division were Ralph Fairbanks’ personal friends.
But he looked twice at the shadowy group as he turned toward his mother’s cottage. Again he looked back.
“There he goes!” suddenly shouted a voice. “One of Hopkins’ tools. Yah! A lickspittle of the super. Yah!”
It is a fact that “sticks and stones can break your bones, but names will never hurt you”; just the same, that old saw does not salve over the sting of unfair vituperations. Ralph was red hot on the instant.
To be dignified, too, is all very well. But Ralph knew these hoodlums quite well enough to be sure that only one course with them would make the proper impression. He possessed as much brute courage as any healthy young fellow. And he did not purpose to allow these loafers to blackguard him on the public street.