“B. Hopkins, Super: “If you want to see your girl again you know who to communicate with and what it will cost you. Be quick. We will not wait long. We want satisfaction.” Ralph could not keep back an excited ejaculation. The operator swung about to look at him. “What—what do you think of that?” he gasped. “Get a repeat!” exclaimed the young engineer. “That wasn’t the regular operator at Timber Brook.” “Not much! It was a rank amateur.” The operator was repeating the distant station’s call—TB, TB, TB, in staccato. There was no reply. The wire was dead. “It must be a fake.” “No fake at all,” returned Ralph hastily. “Where is Mr. Hopkins?” “He told me he was going to the hospital to see how his wife was, and he would be back. Here he is!” Ralph wheeled. The supervisor came striding to the door of the telegraph room. He scowled as usual at Ralph. Then he asked the operator: “Anything doing?” The man hesitated for a moment. Then, in silence, he handed the supervisor the record he had made of the strange telegraph message. CHAPTER XXVIII RALPH ON THE TRAIL Ralph Fairbanks had stepped back under the inimical glare of the supervisor’s look. At that moment he had been ready to forget Mr. Hopkins’ unkindness and unfairness to him. But the man’s plain dislike aroused renewed antagonism in Ralph’s mind. He turned away and, in spite of the tugging at his own heartstrings, was prepared to ignore the supervisor’s trouble. His worst fears for Cherry had been realized, and he suspected that the blow to her father would be well nigh overwhelming. Swinging his dinner can, the young engineer went down the platform, approaching the big locomotive he drove and which had just been brought up from the roundhouse by his faithful firemen. But before he arrived beside the engine he heard a cry and the quick pounding of feet upon the cement. He glanced back over his shoulder. Supervisor Hopkins, white-faced and staring, was tearing along after him, waving the telegram in his hand. The man was utterly beside himself. At last the strain of all his troubles and anxieties had broken him. One would scarcely have recognized the erstwhile stern and uncompromising supervisor who had, within four months, managed to create so much disturbance on this division of the Great Northern Railway. “Pull out! Pull out!” he cried, seizing Ralph’s arm and hustling him toward the steps of the huge locomotive. “Can’t pull out for four minutes, Mr. Hopkins,” Ralph said, trying to keep his own voice and manner placid. “The schedule——” “Hang the schedule!” cried this former exponent of method and exactness. “Do you know what has happened? Those demons!” He shook the paper in his hand. “Do you know what they have done, Fairbanks?”