"Let me lurk around a bit, will you?" inquired Ralph.
For the next ten minutes Ralph, hidden in a corner of the detention room, posted himself and listened. When he came out his face was excited and eager.
"Don't let those prisoners send out a word or see a single person until I come back to you," he directed the marshal.
"I think I have. I'll know for sure inside of six hours."
"And let me know, too. You see all this bothersome mystery is worrying me."
"You first of all," declared Ralph, "and you won't lose by coöperating with us."
"I see you're smart boys," observed the inexperienced marshal, "and I trust in your word to straighten out this tangle."
"What, Ralph?" broke in Zeph eagerly, as they left the place.
"The whole pay car business--at least the start of one."
"I simply listened to Glen's grandfather at his dummy ticker. Poor old man! He fancies he is being sought for by great railroad systems all over the world to take charge of their business. He ticked off all kinds of telegrams to important people. Then I caught the thread of a message he seemed to have particularly on his mind. It is just ten words, and of course must be the one he wanted the marshal to send. There it is."
Ralph showed a card on the back of which he had penciled down the following words:
"Rajah Sun and Moon Aeroplane Spectacles exemplar. Pardon Star Mudji."
Quick as a flash Zeph hauled out the written screed he had acquired while in the company of the conspirators. It comprised the formula of their cypher code.
"Advise Jem and Parsons," he translated at once. "Barn loft plunder. Get me bail." "Who to, Ralph?" he inquired eagerly--"the telegram."
"A relative, I'll bet. You're right, we've got the clew! 'Barn loft plunder.' Ralph, Dunbar Station, quick!"
"Yes," said the young dispatcher quietly, "that's our terminus, as quick as we can make it."
Ralph's special pass furnished him by the road officer came in good.
It brought them a lift on an urgency locomotive and another on the tender of the Daylight Express. At three o'clock that afternoon after due inquiry the two friends approached a house in a lonely settlement at the edge of Dunbar Station.
As they neared the house a woman knitting on its steps arose hurriedly, ran into the house and shut every door and window about the place.