“Water!” gasped the young engineer in a choking tone. “My throat is on fire! What has happened?”
“Nothing alarming,” answered Clark reassuringly, “only—I’m glad I happened to be here.”
Ralph’s mouth and throat seemed burning up. The water he drank only partially allayed his frantic thirst. It was with great difficulty that he could arouse himself from a lethargy that seemed to completely paralyze both body and mind. As the moments passed, however, he succeeded in rallying into something like normal. But as yet he was unable to fully understand just what had happened.
“He needs something to stimulate him,” declared the conductor, and stepping into the cab he hastily ransacked the fireman’s bunker. “Aha!”
His tones announced a discovery—likewise a 125 suspicion. He had unearthed two flasks of liquor, one only partly filled.
“Not for me,” said Ralph, waving back the conductor, who evidently was intent on administering a stimulant. “Liquor!” he cried, suddenly bracing up now. “Fogg never brought it aboard. It’s some plot! Why!” he exclaimed, in sudden enlightenment, “I see it all, clear as day.”
What Ralph saw, all hands in the cab soon realized within the ensuing ten minutes. When they had aroused Fogg, there followed animated theory, discovery and conviction. Not one of them doubted but that some enemy had sneaked aboard of the locomotive while it was sidetracked at noon at Riverton and had put some drug in the jar of coffee. They found a suspicious dark sediment at the bottom of the jar.
“Black Hands—mark it down,” observed Fogg. “Whoever did it, also placed those flasks of liquor in my bunker. See the label on them? They come from a place in Riverton I never was in. The scoundrels aimed to have us found in the cab, just as we have been, and a report go in that the heat and too much liquor had crippled us from making the run.”
“You’ve struck it, Fogg,” assented the conductor. “Just stow that jar and those two flasks in a safe place. I’ll have our special agent Adair, 126 the road detective, find out who bought that liquor. No need of any blabbing to the general public. Are you able to complete the run, Fairbanks?”
“Certainly,” reported Ralph, exercising arms and feet vigorously to restore their circulation. Fogg was still dazed and weak. He had drunk more of the coffee than Ralph. Besides, being the older of the two, he did not shake off the effects of the narcotic so readily as the young engineer.