But startlingly, though in muffled tone, a gruff voice said just above him: “What’s that you want? I dunno wot you sent me for. Where’d you send me?” The fellow at the table jumped up with an ejaculation more forceful than polite. “That drunken bum! What’s he been doing, do you suppose, Grif?” “You should not have trusted him, Andy,” returned the second man. “I told you what he was.” The first speaker strode heavily toward the door. Ralph realized that he was about to be discovered. And he knew something else, too: That was, that his reckless friend, Zeph Dallas, was on the next flight above, and had sought to imitate Whitey Malone’s voice. “Nice mess I’m in,” thought the young train dispatcher. He crouched, but gripping the spoke, his only weapon. If it came to a fight, he purposed to have the best of the argument—and have it quick. He was sure he knew who this fellow approaching the door was. The other man did not have to repeat his name. “Whitey! what the dickens is the matter with you?” called the man. “You know what I sent you for. Didn’t you see Perrin?” Ralph started. Perrin was a name he knew well. Jim Perrin was an officer of the shopmen’s union. The union had an agreement with the Great Northern which ran well into the next year. That was one reason why the better element of union labor on the road would not discuss a strike at this time. But, to Ralph’s mind, Jim Perrin was a sly and unfaithful fellow. He had a bad reputation in the neighborhood where he lived. He drank and gambled and had other habits that were inexcusable. If there was a secret association between Jim Perrin and these men—especially with this fellow approaching the door—— Ralph was thinking of this; but involuntarily his arm went up—the arm, the hand of which gripped the spoke of the wheel. He poised the club. And just then, as the man’s head was thrust out of the doorway like a turtle’s out of its shell, that crazy Zeph yelled from above: “Hit him, boy! Hit him!” It startled Ralph so that he made a fumble of it. While he hesitated the man drew back his head with a cry of rage, and the next moment he produced a pistol and thrust it into the hall! He could not have aimed at either of the young fellows; but both of them were startled. It was touch and go—the bullet might find its billet in either of their bodies if the man fired. “Who’s there?” he yelled. Ralph sprang half way down the stairs. He heard Zeph going up the other flight on the jump. The man yelled again for his comrade to aid him in the chase. Before Ralph reached the lower door he heard a window smashed above and knew that Zeph Dallas had found a fire escape. He tore open the outer door of the house and bounded through. The faint lamplight from above must have revealed his figure, for Zeph shouted: “Out of the way, below! Stand aside!” He had come down the fire escape ladder on the run. There was no ladder to the ground, of course, and he swung from the lower platform to drop.