Ralph hesitated, not knowing what to say to Cherry Hopkins. He had never been more than casually acquainted with the supervisor’s daughter; but he did admire her. Ralph could not have failed to attract the young girl’s attention during the three months she had spent in Rockton. In the first place, almost everybody in the small but thriving city knew the young train dispatcher.

In the first story about Ralph, “Ralph of the Roundhouse,” the young fellow’s beginnings on the Great Northern were fully related. His father had been one of the builders of the Great Northern, but through unfortunate speculations he had died poor and left Ralph and his mother to struggle along as best they could. In addition, Mr. Fairbanks’ partner, Gaspar Farrington, had been dishonest, and had Ralph and his widowed mother at his mercy.

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