The young train dispatcher hoped that the old man would ask for a substitute for the next run. But he appeared at night in season to take the big locomotive out of the roundhouse. He had one virtue, at least. Stubbornness. That day had been an anxious one around divisional headquarters. Ralph had gone home for supper as usual; but he had come right downtown again. The strikers were holding a continuous meeting in Beeman Hall and the police were in attendance to keep the speakers from going too far. It was told Ralph that many yardmen, switchmen and section men had attended the meeting and that the small unions of railroad workers were all but disorganized. One shop was running with a crippled crew. The supervisor certainly was efficient himself. He could report that the wheels in that shop were turning. Ralph saw that Mr. Hopkins was on the job this evening. Plainclothes men, belonging to the railroad squad, were on duty about the terminal, roundhouse, and yard. Every hour or so some part of the planned schedule for the trains on the division had to be scrapped. Ralph was glad he was on hand this evening when these changes had to be made. Johnny was a good man, but he was beginning to get rattled. And a train dispatcher who loses his head endangers everything. It was along in the evening and the traffic was easing up for a while in the terminal yards when a message addressed to “Chief Dispatcher, Rockton” came over the wire, and Johnny took it off. “Shadow Valley,” he said. “That is where the Midnight Flyer always loses time. What kind of country is that?” “A wild place. The Shadow Valley Station is at this end; Oxford is at the far end. Some fifty miles long. The Midnight Flyer stops at both stations. Little but timber towns in between. Great tourist country in the summer. Hullo! What’s this?” “It’s in code, I reckon,” said Johnny, seeing Ralph’s puzzled face. “Haven’t you got the key? It is aimed at you, all right.” Ralph repeated the message aloud: “What is Whitey M. doing in Shadow Valley? Wake up B. A.—X. Y. Z.” “That is as mysterious as a hobo Mulligan,” remarked Johnny, grinning. “What do you know about that!” muttered Ralph, and without explaining to his assistant he went to the telephone booth with the telegram in his hand. He was so well acquainted with the vagaries of Zeph Dallas’ mind that he knew at once this was his signature. Zeph had just that twist to his mind that, if he were sent for a pail of milk, he would try to disguise both himself and the milk. “There must be something doing over there at Shadow Valley,” muttered Ralph. “And ‘Whitey M.’ means just one person, and one only. I haven’t seen that fellow since we had the run-in with him that night in the alley. Humph!”