Ralph kissed his mother warmly at the door and started off for the station, swinging his heavy lunch can. Mrs. Fairbanks never overlooked the fact that a railroader is always hungry. And Ralph hated restaurant food. He carried enough for a bite on the engine as well as a hearty breakfast at the far end of his run. He did not go down to the roundhouse himself, but trusted to his firemen to back the locomotive on to the westbound track and into the train-shed. As he stood in his overalls and with his coat and lunch kit near the open window of the telegraph room, he heard Mr. Barton Hopkins’ voice inside. “Anything on, Silsby?” asked the supervisor, in his sharp, quick way. “No, Mr. Hopkins,” returned the night operative. “Rush this, then,” ordered the supervisor and then Ralph heard his quick step going out of the room. The operative, Silsby, turned immediately to his key. Ralph heard him call Shelby Junction and repeat the call until he got an answer. Then he sent the following, Ralph reading the Morse easily as Silsby tapped it out: Miss C. Hopkins, “22 Horatio Street, “Shelby Junction. “Your mother ill. Old trouble, but serious. Come home at once. “(Signed) B. Hopkins.” There was the repeat back from the Shelby Junction operator, and then Silsby gave the “O. K.” and closed his key. Ralph, waiting for the backing in of the big eight-wheeler for Number 202, wondered if Mr. Hopkins was, after all, as case-hardened and hard-crusted as he appeared to be. The supervisor was having domestic trouble. Perhaps he loved his mouse-like little wife, and his daughter, as well. These family troubles might be one present cause of the supervisor’s caustic remarks and his uncompromising attitude in railroad affairs. “I was telling the G. M. the officials did not look at things from the men’s standpoint,” considered Ralph. “Perhaps the men ought to see things from the supervisor’s standpoint, too.” CHAPTER XXII THE THREAT DIRECT Had Ralph Fairbanks not been standing just outside the telegraph office window he would not have obtained a certain bit of information which proved, later, to be most important. He had heard the operator send Mr. Hopkins’ wire to his daughter, and he knew very well that the girl would quickly respond to his and her mother’s need. But Ralph was not at all expecting such a seemingly prompt response as followed. The big illuminated clock in the train shed now pointed to a quarter to twelve. The long string of cars belonging to the Midnight Flyer had been backed in some time before and the gates had been opened for the passengers to swarm aboard. The berths were all made up, of course, and the passengers immediately went to bed.