Ralph on the Overland Express Part 7

"You don't?" yelled Bouncer, hopping mad at failing to dazzle this new opponent with an acquisition that had awed his juvenile cohorts and admirers. "Why, I'll grind you to powder! Strip."

With this Bouncer threw off his coat, and there was a scuffle among his minions to secure the honor of holding it.

"I don't intend to strip," remarked Ralph, "and I don't want to strike you, but you've got to open a way for myself and my friend to go about our business, or I'll knock you down."

"You'll----Fellows, hear him!" shrieked Bouncer, dancing from foot to foot. "Oh, you mincemeat! up with your fists! It's business now."

The young engineer saw that it was impossible to evade a fight. The allusion of Bouncer to Jim Evans was enlightening. It explained the animus of the present attack.

If Lemuel Fogg had been bent on queering the special record run to Bridgeport out of jealousy, Evans, a former boon companion of the fireman, had it in for Ralph on a more malicious basis. The young railroader knew that Evans was capable of any meanness or cruelty to pay him back for causing his arrest as an incendiary during the recent railroad strike on the Great Northern.

There was no doubt but what Evans had advised his graceless nephew of the intended visit of Ralph to Bridgeport. During the strike Evans had maimed railroad men and had been guilty of many other cruel acts of vandalism. Ralph doubted not that the plan was to have his precious nephew "do" him in a way that he would not be able to make the return trip with No. 999.

The young engineer was no pugilist, but he knew how to defend himself, and he very quickly estimated the real fighting caliber of his antagonist. He saw at a glance that Billy Bouncer was made up of bluff and bl.u.s.ter and show. The hoodlum made a great ado of posing and exercising his fists in a scientific way. He was so stuck up over some medal awards at amateur boxing shows, that he was wasting time in displaying his "style."

"Are you ready?" demanded Bouncer, doing a quickstep and making a picturesque feint at his opponent.

"Let me pa.s.s," said Ralph.

"Wow, when I've eaten you up, maybe!"

"Since you will have it, then," observed Ralph quietly, "take that for a starter."

The young engineer struck out once--only once, but he had calculated the delivery and effect of the blow to a nicety. There was a thud as his fist landed under the jaw of the bully, so quickly and so unexpectedly that the latter did not have time to put up so much as a pretense of a protection.

Back went Billy Bouncer, his teeth rattling, and down went Billy Bouncer on a backward slide. His head struck a loose paving brick. He moaned and closed his eyes.

"Four--medals!" he voiced faintly.

"Come on, Clark," said Ralph.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed the arm of his new acquaintance and tried to force his way to the alley opening. Thus they proceeded a few feet, but only a few.

A hush had fallen over Bouncer's friends, at the amazing sight of their redoubtable champion gone down in inglorious defeat, but only for a moment. One of the largest boys in the group rallied the disorganized mob.

"Out with your smashers!" he shouted. "Don't let them get away!"

Ralph pulled, or rather forced his companion back against two steps with an iron railing, leading to the little platform of the alley door of a building fronting on the street.

"No show making a break," he continued in rapid tones. "Look at the cowards!"

At the call of their new leader, the crowd to its last member whipped out their weapons. They were made of some hard substance like lead, and incased in leather. They were attached to the wrist by a long loop, which enabled their possessors to strike a person at long range, the object of the attack having no chance to resist or defend himself.

"Grab the railing," ordered Clark, whom Ralph was beginning to recognize as a quick-witted fellow in an emergency. "Now then, keep side by side--any tactics to hold them at bay or drive them off."

The two friends had secured quite a tactical position, and they proceeded to make the most of it. The mob with angry yells made for them direct. They jostled one another in their eager malice to strike a blow. They crowded close to the steps, and their ugly weapons shot out from all directions.

One of the weapons landed on Ralph's hand grasping the iron railing, and quite numbed and almost crippled it. A fellow used his weapon as a missile, on purpose or by mistake. At all events, it whirled from his hand through the air, and striking Clark's cheek, laid it open with quite a ghastly wound. Clark reached over and s.n.a.t.c.hed a slungshot from the grasp of another of the a.s.saulting party. He handed it quickly to his companion.

"Use it for all it's worth," he suggested rapidly. "Don't let them down us, or we're goners."

As he spoke, Clark, nettled with pain, balanced himself on the railing and sent both feet flying into the faces of the onpressing mob. These tactics were wholly unexpected by the enemy. One of their number went reeling back, his nose nearly flattened to his face.

"Rush 'em!" shouted the fellow frantically.

Half-a-dozen of his cohorts sprang up the steps. They managed to grab Ralph's feet. Now it was a pull and a clutch. Ralph realized that if he ever got down into the midst of that surging mob, or under their feet, it would be all over with him.

"It's all up with us!" gasped Clark with a startled stare down the alley. "Fogg, Lemuel Fogg!"

The heart of the young engineer sank somewhat as he followed the direction of his companion's glance. Sure enough, the fireman of No. 999 had put in an appearance on the scene.

"He's coming like a cyclone!" said Clark.

Fogg was a rus.h.i.+ng whirlwind of motion. He was bareheaded, and he looked wild and uncanny. Somewhere he had picked up a long round clothes pole or the handle to some street worker's outfit. With this he was making direct for the crowd surrounding Ralph and Clark. Just then a slungshot blow drove the latter to his knees. Two of the crowd tried to kick at his face. Ralph was nerved up to desperate action now. He caught the uplifted foot of one of the vandals and sent him toppling. The other he knocked flat with his fist, but overpowering numbers ma.s.sed for a headlong rush on the beleaguered refugees.

"Swish--thud! swis.h.!.+" Half blinded by a blow dealt between the eyes by a hurling slungshot, the young engineer could discern a break in the program, the appearance of a new element that startled and astonished him. He had expected to see the furious Fogg join the mob and aid them in finis.h.i.+ng up their dastardly work. Instead, like some madman, Fogg had waded into the ranks of the group, swinging his formidable weapon like a flail. It rose, it fell, it swayed from side to side, and its execution was terrific.

The fireman mowed down the amazed and scattering forces of Billy Bouncer as if they were rows of tenpins. He knocked them flat, and then he kicked them. It was a marvel that he did not cripple some of them, for, his eyes glaring, his muscles bulging to the work, he acted like some fairly irresponsible being.

Within two minutes' time the last one of the mob had vanished into the street. Flinging the pole away from him, Fogg began looking for his cap, which had blown off his head as he came rus.h.i.+ng down the alley at cyclone speed.

Clark stared at the fireman in petrified wonder. Ralph stood overwhelmed with uncertainty and amazement.

"Mr. Fogg, I say, Mr. Fogg!" he cried, running after the fireman and catching at his sleeve, "How--why----"

"Boy," choked out Lemuel Fogg, turning a pale, twitching face upon Ralph, "don't say a word to me!"

And then with a queer, clicking sob in his throat, the fireman of No. 999 hastened down the alley looking for his cap.

CHAPTER VII

DAVE BISSELL, TRAIN BOY

"I don't understand it at all," exclaimed Ralph.

"Mad--decidedly mad," declared young Clark. "Whew! that was a lively tussle. All the b.u.t.tons are gone off my vest and one sleeve is torn open clear to the shoulder, and I guess there were only basting threads in that coat of yours, for it's ripped clear up the back."

Clark began to pick up some scattered b.u.t.tons from the ground. His companion, however, was looking down the alley, and he followed Fogg with his eyes until the fireman had disappeared into the street.

"You're wondering about things," spoke Clark. "So am I."

"I'm trying to figure out the puzzle, yes," admitted the young engineer. "You see, we were both of us wrong, and we have misjudged Mr. Fogg."

"I don't know about that," dissented Ralph's companion.

"Why, he has helped us, instead of hurt us."