“What’s the trouble, Torchy?” he inquired.
Torchy caught his breath, but the excited flare in his eyes did not diminish.
“Say!” he spluttered out; “I was looking for you. That car, the one they use out west in Calfrancisco, Francifornia, no, I mean Calfris—rot! out west, anyway—tourist car.”
“I know, yes,” nodded Ralph.
“Well, you remember the queer old fossil’s special to Fordham spur? That fellow Zeph Dallas was on it.”
“I remember distinctly; go ahead.”
“There’s another car just like that one in the yards now, right this minute.” 245
“You don’t say so? I didn’t suppose that more than one antiquated relic of that kind was in existence,” said Ralph.
“Come on and see,” invited Torchy. “This last car must have come from the north this morning, just like the other one did. It’s bunched up with a lot more of the blockade runners, delayed freight, you know, and they’ve made up a train of it and others for the Mountain Division.”
Besides being intensely interested, Ralph had time to spare. It was nearly a week after the Shelby Junction incident. The great storm had crippled some of the lines of the great Northern to a fairly alarming extent. The Mountain Division had felt the full force of the blizzard and had suffered the most extensively. There were parts of the division where it took several days to repair culverts, strengthen trestles and replace weakened patches of track. The Overland Express missed several runs, but had got back on fair schedule two days before. A new storm had set in that very morning, and as Ralph followed Torchy there were places where the drifts were up to their knees.