CHAPTER VII
LIMPY JOE'S RAILROAD RESTAURANT
Zeph Dallas stared about him in profound bewilderment and interest as Ralph led the way towards Limpy Joe's Railroad Restaurant.
It was certainly an odd-appearing place. Additions had been built onto the freight car until the same were longer than the original structure.
A square of about two hundred feet was enclosed by a barbed wire fence, and this space was quite as interesting as the restaurant building.
There was a rude shack, which seemed to answer for a barn, a haystack beside it, and a well-appearing vegetable garden. Then, in one corner of the yard, was a heap of old lumber, stone, brick, doors, window sash, in fact, it looked as if some one had been gathering all the unmated parts of various houses he could find.
The restaurant was neatly painted a regular, dark-red freight-car color outside. Into it many windows had been cut, and a glance through the open doorway showed an interior scrupulously neat and clean.
"Tell me about it," said Zeph. "Limpy Joe—who is he? Does he run the place alone?"
"Yes," answered Ralph. "He is an orphan, and was hurt by the cars a few years ago. The railroad settled with him for two hundred dollars, an old freight car and a free pass for life over the road, including, Limpy Joe stipulated, locomotives and cabooses."
"Wish I had that," said Zeph—"I'd be riding all the time."
"You would soon get tired of it," Ralph asserted. "Well, Joe invested part of his money in a horse and wagon, located in that old freight car, which the company moved here for him from a wreck in the creek, and became a squatter on that little patch of ground. Then the restaurant idea came along, and the railroad hands encouraged him. Before that, however, Joe had driven all over the country, picking up old lumber and the like, and the result is the place as you see it."
"Well, he must be an ambitious, industrious fellow."
"He is," affirmed Ralph, "and everybody likes him. He's ready at any time of the night to get up and give a tired-out railroad hand a hot cup of coffee or a lunch. His meals are famous, too, for he is a fine cook."
"Hello, Ralph Fairbanks," piped a happy little voice as Ralph and Zeph entered the restaurant.
Ralph shook hands with the speaker, a boy hobbling about the place on a crutch.
"What's it going to be?" asked Limpy Joe, "full dinner or a lunch?"
"Both, best you've got," smiled Ralph. "The railroad is paying for this."
"That so? Then we'll reduce the rates. Railroad has been too good to me to overcharge the company."
"This is my friend, Zeph Dallas," introduced Ralph.
"Glad to know you," said Joe. "Sit down at the counter, fellows, and I'll soon have you served."
"Well, well," said Zeph, staring around the place one way, then the other, and then repeating the performance. "This strikes me."
"Interesting to you, is it?" asked Ralph.
"It's wonderful. Fixed this up all alone out of odds and ends? I tell you, I'd like to be a partner in a business like this."
"Want a partner here, Joe?" called out Ralph to his friend in a jocular way.
"I want a helper," answered the cripple, busy among the shining cooking ware on a kitchen stove at one end of the restaurant.
"Mean that?" asked Zeph.
"I do. I have some new plans I want to carry out, and I need some one to attend to the place half of the time."
Again Zeph glanced all about the place.
"Say, it fascinates me," he observed to Ralph. "Upon my word, I believe I'll come to work here When I get through with this work for you."
"Tell you what," said Limpy Joe with a shrewd glance at Zeph, as he placed the smoking dishes before his customers. "I'll make it worth the while of an honest, active fellow to come in here with me. I have some grand ideas."
"You had some good ones when you fitted up the place," declared Zeph.
"You think it over. I like your looks," continued Joe. "I'm in earnest, and I might make it a partnership after a while."
The boys ate a hearty meal, and the young fireman paid for it.
"Business good, Joe?" he inquired, as they were about to leave.
"Famous. I've got some new customers, too. Don't know who they are."
"What's that?"
"I don't, for a fact."
"That sounds puzzling," observed Ralph.
"Well, it's considerable of a puzzle to me—all except the double pay I get," responded Joe. "For nearly a week I've had a funny order. One dark night some one pushed up a window here and threw in a card. It contained instructions and a ten-dollar bill."
"That's pretty mysterious," said the interested Zeph.
"The card told me that if I wanted to continue a good trade, I would say nothing about it, but every night at dark drive to a certain point in the timber yonder with a basket containing a good solid day's feed for half-a-dozen men."
"Well, well," murmured Zeph, while Ralph gave quite a start, but remained silent, though strictly attentive.
"Well, I have acted on orders given, and haven't said a word about it to anybody but you, Ralph. The reason I tell you is, because I think you are interested in some of the persons who are buying meals from me in this strange way. It's all right for me to speak out before your friend here?"
"Oh, certainly," assented Ralph.
"Well, Ike Slump is one of the party in the woods, and Mort Bemis is another."
"I guessed that the moment you began your story," said Ralph, "and I am looking for those very persons."
"I thought you would be interested. They are wanted for that attempted treasure-train robbery, aren't they?"
"Yes, and for a more recent occurrence," answered Ralph—"the looting of the Dover freight the other night."
"I never thought of that, though I should have done so," said Joe. "The way I know that Slump and Bemis are in the woods yonder, is that one night I had a breakdown, and was delayed a little, and saw them come for the food basket where I had left it."
Ralph's mind was soon made up. He told Joe all about their plans.
"You've got to help us out, Joe," he added.
"You mean take you up into the woods in the wagon to-night?"
"Yes."
"Say," said Joe, his shrewd eyes sparkling with excitement, "I'll do it in fine style. Ask no questions. I've got a plan. I'll have another breakdown, not a sham one, this time. I'll have you two well covered up in the wagon box, and you can lie there until some one comes after the basket."
"Good," approved Ralph, "you are a genuine friend, Joe."
Ralph and Zeph had to wait around the restaurant all the afternoon. There was only an occasional customer, and Joe had plenty of time to spare. He took a rare delight in showing his friends his treasures, as he called them.
About dusk Joe got the food supply ready for the party in the woods. He hitched up the horse to a wagon, arranged some blankets and hay in the bottom of the vehicle, so that his friends could hide themselves, and soon all was ready for the drive into the timber.
Ralph managed to look out as they proceeded into the woods. The wagon was driven about a mile. Then Joe got out and set the basket under a tree.
A little distance from it he got out again, took off a wheel, left it lying on the ground, unhitched the horse, and rode away on the back of the animal. The vehicle, to a casual observer, would suggest the appearance of a genuine breakdown.
"Now, Zeph," said Ralph as both arranged their coverings so they could view tree and basket clearly, "no rash moves."
"If anybody comes, what then?" inquired the farmer boy.
"We shall follow them, but with great caution. Keep close to me, so that I can give you special instructions, if it becomes necessary."
"Good," said Zeph. "That will be soon, for there they are!"
Two figures had appeared at the tree. One took up the basket, the other glanced around stealthily. Ralph recognized both of them, even in the dim twilight, at some distance away. One was Ike Slump, the other his old-time crony and accomplice, Mort Bemis.