“Why, I ought to have come upon him before this,”
he reasoned, wonderingly. “That stuff would
knock out a strong man, let alone a lad like him.
He ought to have fallen off, or have gotten off, and
become unconscious before this. I wonder if I
made any mistake.”
He went over in his mind the different points of his
plot. It seemed perfect. But where was his
victim who should have been lying unconscious beside
the road?
“Something’s wrong!” Ryan exclaimed,
as he passed the spring. He looked about.
The trail was dusty, but he could sec no signs of Jack’s
having dismounted, or indications that the lad had
fallen and gotten up to the saddle again.
“Something’s wrong,” Ryan repeated.
Then he put spurs to his horse and galloped down the
trail toward Golden Crossing.
AT GOLDEN CROSSING
“Jack is late, isn’t he, Jennie?”
asked Mrs. Blake, as she sat in the Golden Crossing
post office. She had finished her sewing, and
had stopped for a little chat.
“Well, you know he had to ride out and get the
mail from the disabled stage coach,” replied
the girl, as she made some entries in her books.
“And perhaps he had to go farther than the messenger
said. There’s plenty of time, though.”
“Well, he’s late,” Mrs. Blake repeated.
“I hope he doesn’t have to make a night
trip.”
“So do I,” her daughter murmured, as she
thought of the time Jack had been held up. “It
isn’t likely he will, though. You know,
Mr. Perkfeld said he needn’t make those night
trips any more unless there was something very important.”
“You never can tell when some important matter
will come in though,” resumed Mrs. Blake, after
a pause, during which she had gone to the window to
peer down the trail in the direction from which Jack
would come. “And isn’t he expecting
something for Mr. Argent?”
“Yes, and that is the only thing I’m worrying
about,” confessed Jennie. “If those
letters come in Jack will be sure to want to ride off
with them at once, night or day. And we won’t
know when the letters do arrive until the mail sacks
come here and I open them.”
“Well, it certainly is a risky business, this
pony express,” sighed her mother.
“It wouldn’t be so risky if it wasn’t
for those desperate outlaws, and the other men who
want Jack’s position,” Jennie said, her
eyes flashing. “It makes me so mad when
I think what an unfair advantage they take that I wish
I were a man so I could help Jack fight them!”
“My!” laughed Mrs. Blake. “But
I guess you’re better off inside here, than
out on the mountain trail.”
“Yes, I suppose so. That’s all we
women are good for, anyhow, to sit and wait and worry!”
“Any one would think you were twice as old as
you are,” said Mrs. Blake with a smile at her
daughter. “Hark! Is that he coming?”
They both started toward the door, but, with a sigh
of disappointment, Jennie said:
