As it chanced, Ralph heard him and he asked the farmer: “Have you seen any suspicious persons around here lately?” “Don’t know as I did. There’s been a young feller come to my place off and on for a week or more. But he ain’t what you’d call suspicious. He bought eggs and potatoes and such, and paid for ’em with good money. He didn’t look bad enough to want to ditch a train. No, sir.” There were too many people around for Ralph to describe Zeph Dallas to this man and try to find out if the fellow he spoke of was his friend. Yet he could not help believing that Zeph was still in this vicinity and that he had taken the desperate chance of stopping the Midnight Flyer with the burning scarecrow. Yet, if this was so, why had Zeph not remained to see if his strange signal set against the train had done its work of warning? “Odd enough,” thought Ralph. “Odd enough to have emanated from Zeph’s brain, that is sure. But where did Zeph go, if so, and why?” In any event, Zeph did not show up at the place before the trestle was braced and the express moved on. Ralph got his belated train to Hammerfest, the end of the run, two hours late. He had to start back almost immediately with the forenoon express that was supposed to reach Rockton at half past eleven. When this train reached the scene of the early morning excitement Ralph had to ease her along very slowly. The first repairs on the trestle were by no means permanent. By daylight he could see, from the cab window, the entire scene of what had come so near being an awful catastrophe. On the south side of the right of way at this point was a towering crag. It was covered by scrub growth that masked the rocks, but the young engineer had once climbed that rock and knew that there was more than one path to the top. As he looked upward he saw, caught upon a bush some yards above the level of the railroad, a garment fluttering in the breeze. He was positive, after a moment, that it was a vest—a discarded vest. “Some hobo has left part of his outfit,” thought Ralph. But then, as he raised his eyes higher, he saw another strange signal fluttering from a bush. It was a shirt. He could see the sleeves of it, and it fluttered grotesquely. “Why?” the young engineer muttered. He looked farther up the steep wall and saw a cap! Something about that cap astonished him even more than the other fluttering articles of wearing apparel. Distant as it was, Ralph thought he recognized that cap. It was of a mustard color, an odd color, and he remembered that the night he had had his last adventure with Zeph Dallas in Rockton Zeph had worn just that sort of cap! Then he got the signal to go ahead, and could do nothing at the moment to investigate these matters. He pulled up the hill toward Shadow Valley Station. CHAPTER XXI ABOUT CHERRY