Ralph in the Switch Tower Part 13

"I tell you to stop!" cried Ralph strenuously. "There's a wild beast in there--the tiger that escaped from the circus."

"You can't bluff me," retorted Young Slavin, making a determined lurch through the doorway.

Ralph ran to a window sill and seized a long iron wrench lying there. He was really alarmed for the safety of his would-be visitor.

At all odds, he felt it his duty to save even an acknowledged enemy from a foolhardy fate.

Ralph got to the trap, and started to descend the ladder.

A curdling yell rang out from below, and Ralph saw tiger and pugilist whirling together in a maze of wild confusion.

CHAPTER XII--THE SUPERINTENDENT'S OPINION

It seemed as if the escaped circus tiger had disputed the intrusion of Young Slavin just as it had previously that of Ralph.

Whether his belligerent enemy had tried to beat off the animal, or it had attacked Slavin as he attempted to ascend the ladder, Ralph could not tell. One thing was sure, however: the impetuous "champeen" found himself in the mix-up of his life.

The tiger was growling and snarling. Slavin was uttering m.u.f.fled shouts of terror and pain. Ralph fairly dropped down half a dozen rungs of the ladder.

The wrench with which he had armed himself was heavy, and had a very long handle. Six feet from the floor of the lower tower room, Ralph leaned as far out as he could, holding on to the ladder by one foot and one hand.

Swinging the wrench in the other hand and watching his opportunity, Ralph landed a st.u.r.dy whack directly on top of the head of the infuriated tiger.

The blow was severe enough to crack the skull of a human being. The tiger, however, only ducked its head and sneezed, but it relaxed its hold of Slavin.

Ralph saw its great paw cut the air in one lightning-like downward stroke. He saw Slavin, with a curdling shriek, bound through the doorway like a ball. Then the tiger turned, caught sight of his new a.s.sailant, and crouched with a malignant snarl, posing for a spring.

Ralph took aim. He let go of the heavy wrench, using it as a missile now. It struck the tiger squarely between the eyes, throwing the animal off its balance. Then with due agility Ralph shot up the ladder like a steeple-jack.

Once in the tower room he closed the trap and fastened it down. A glance from its window showed some commotion in the yards round about.

A wild, tattered figure was scudding in frenzy for the street. It was Young Slavin. He was hatless, and, from neck to heel down his back, every garment he wore was ripped exactly in two as if slashed scientifically by a butcher-knife.

This envelope of tatters and Slavin's fearful outcries had attracted the attention of flagmen, engineers, and brakemen in the vicinity. They shouted after the scurrying fugitive, they even tried to head him off for an explanation. Slavin, however, lost to reason for the moment, made a mad bee-line for Railroad Street, and disappeared behind some freight sheds.

Ralph hailed a roundhouse hand carrying a bucket of oil.

"Shut the lower door, will you?" he asked.

The man did so. It operated on a spring, and all he had to do was to detach a hook from a staple that held it open.

"Slip the padlock," continued Ralph.

"Why, that will lock you in!" exclaimed the bewildered oilman.

"That's all right," answered Ralph. "Thanks."

He smiled to himself as he answered some switch calls. The smile broadened as he ran over the exciting incidents of the hour.

Young Slavin was probably more scared than hurt. In his muddled condition, amid the semi-darkness of the lower tower room he might not have discerned or realized what had attacked him.

"He will report me a demon, and his friends will think me one, if he shows up in those tatters, laying his plight to my charge," smiled Ralph. "Well, I fancy 'the young Hercules' has got all the satisfaction he wants for the present."

In about fifteen minutes Ralph leaned from the window to greet a coterie he had been expecting for some time.

Stiggs, placid-faced and leisurely as usual, led a party Ralph had seen grouped around the circus cages on the street tracks at noon.

The six menagerie men still carried their equipment for capturing the escaped tiger: pikes, hooks, halter chain, and muzzle.

The manager, his hat stuck back on his head, nervously chewing a match and urging Stiggs to hurry, looked very much excited.

"Come, can't you hustle a bit?" Ralph heard him say to Stiggs. "Where's your tiger?"

Stiggs pointed up to the switch tower.

"What are you giving me?" demanded the circus manager in disgust--"that's a boy."

"He sent me--he knows where the tiger is," a.s.serted Stiggs.

"Oh, that's it. Young man!" called up the circus manager. "Do you know this man?"

"Very intimately. I sent him to you. I have located your escaped animal, as he told you, I presume?" said Ralph.

"He did. It's true, then?" cried the circus manager eagerly. "Where is the brute?"

"Mr. Stiggs," called down Ralph, "are these people going to pay you for your trouble?"

"Oh, sure," replied Stiggs animatedly. "See there--they gave me a whole package of tobacco."

Ralph regarded the simple-minded railroad pensioner pityingly. He fixed a censorious glance on the circus manager. The latter flushed and looked embarra.s.sed.

"He said that was all he wanted," stammered the man.

"Oh, well, that won't do at all," declared Ralph. "Your animal has done some damage--in fact, came very nearly doing a great deal of damage.

Besides that, Mr. Stiggs is a poor man. You offered a liberal reward for the capture of the animal this morning, I believe. Does that offer stand good now?"

A little crowd had been drawn to the spot by the presence of such an unusual group. Among them was a young fellow who had kept with the party since it had started out.

The circus manager knew this young man to be a reporter on the local paper, in the quest of a sensation. He could not risk an effective free advertis.e.m.e.nt by an exhibition of n.i.g.g.ardliness on the part of the proprietors of the circus.

"Sure," he said importantly; "our people spare no expense in catering to the great show-going public. They spent six thousand dollars in caging the famous Calcutta Tom, the wonder of the animal universe, and--

"You went over all that this noon," said Ralph, in a business-like way.

"What about the fifty dollars?"