“Well,” said Ralph, talking it over later with his assistant operator as they were trying to untangle the trains in the yard and those waiting on the near-by blocks, “we must hand it to supervisor Barton Hopkins. He is personally efficient. He found a day man to take poor Dooley’s place, he got a man for the switcher, and he dressed down the whole yard crew and set them to work again in an hour.” “But how long are they going to work?” grumbled the operator. “They all act like whipped dogs. That isn’t the way to run a division.” “It is his way of running it. And the G.M. says he is suiting the stockholders and directors right down to the ground. Oh, the railroad business is on the toboggan!” “Ha ha!” croaked the operator. “You sound like these other old stagers. I haven’t been in the game so long as you have, Fairbanks, although I am older than you. The pay is good and the hours not bad. Believe me! I’ve had worse jobs than train dispatching.” “Oh, so have I. But I feel at a time like this that I’d like to be into the game right, instead of sitting up here overlooking a railroad yard and making pin-pricks on a road map.” “Going back to the locomotive lever?” “Do you know,” said Ralph earnestly and softly, “while I was fiddling down there on that little old yard engine, I felt _right_. I wouldn’t want my mother to know it, for she always worried when I had a run, but I believe I was born for the throttle. I’m an engineer, and I always will be.” * * * * * The morning paper was full of the strike of the shopmen, and the threat was made by McCarrey that the yardmen and switchers would be out within twenty-four hours. “We’re going to stop every wheel from turning on this division of the Great Northern,” the strike leader told the reporters. “And before we are through, we’ll plug both ends of the system so tight that the officials will have to come to our terms.” “How about the Brotherhoods?” he was asked. “That is bunk,” McCarrey declared. “The Brotherhood members are practically all with us. They don’t have to strike. We are going to strike for them. The roads can’t run trains if they have no shop workers or maintenance of way men. The engineers and firemen won’t take out trains after a while when they can’t get repairs made or road work kept up or switching done. No, sir, we’ve got ’em where we want ’em. Watch us.” “I guess they ought to be watched, all right,” Ralph told his mother at his late breakfast. “I wonder what Zeph is doing? I wonder where Mr. Adair is?” “I should think you wouldn’t worry about them,” said the widow. “They have their own work. You have yours, Ralph. Please don’t get mixed up in this ugly business.”