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Words: 45895 in 39 pages
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"Of course, if not an accident, there was a purpose in it," muttered Griscom, reaching into his tool box for a weapon, "but what makes you think it wasn't an accident?"
Ralph did not reply, for he was gone. Springing across the coal heaped up in the tender, he climbed to the top of the first freight car and started on a swift run the length of the train.
This, taken in connection with what had at first startled him, made Ralph feel pretty sure that he had not missed his guess in attributing the landslide to some agency outside of nature.
While adjusting the air gauge Ralph had noticed a flare ahead, then a lantern light up the side of the embankment, and then, in the blaze of a wild flash of lightning, he had witnessed the descent of a great tearing, tossing mass, landing in the railroad cut.
"It can mean only a hold-up," theorized Ralph. "Yes, I am quite right."
He slowed down in his wild dash over the car tops, and proceeded with caution. Down at the end of the train he saw lights that he knew did not belong to the train hands.
Ralph neared the caboose and then dropped flat to the top of the car he was on. Peering past its edge, he made out a wagon, half-a-dozen men, and the train hands backed to the side of the cut and held captive there by two of the strangers, who menaced them with revolvers.
Then two others of the marauding gang took crowbars from the wagon, and one, carrying a lantern, proceeded along the side of the cars inspecting the freight cards.
"They must know of some valuable goods on the train," reflected Ralph.
It was an ideal spot for a train robbery, between two stations, and no train was due for several hours.
Ralph was in a quandary as to his best course of procedure. For a moment he considered going for Griscom and arming himself with a bar of rod.
"It would be six to two and we would get the worst of it," he decided. "There is only one thing to do--get back to Brocton. It's less than a mile. Can I make it before these fellows get away with their plunder? Good! a patent coupler."
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