THE UNITED STATES MAIL
The boys reached the ranch the next morning, and Mr. Oliver, who
followed by a different route a couple of days later, seemed satisfied
with the result of his journey.
"If the dope men leave us alone for the next three weeks we're not
likely to be troubled with them afterward," he said. "Barclay expects
very shortly to be ready for what he calls his coup."
"I suppose he didn't mention exactly when he would bring it off?" Harry
remarked.
"No," said Mr. Oliver with a laugh. "Barclay usually waits until he's
certain before he moves, and he's not addicted to spoiling things by
haste. In the meanwhile you may as well keep your eyes sharply open."
"Won't it be awkward to communicate with him if you have to go to
Bannington's every time you mail a letter?" Frank asked.
"That's a point which naturally occurred to me," Mr. Oliver answered.
"There are, however, reasons for believing that Barclay will be able to
get over the difficulty."
He said nothing further on the subject, but it cropped up again one
evening when Mr. Webster arrived at the ranch in time for supper. He
told them that he had finished the bridge he had gone away to build, and
when they sat about the stove after the meal was over he turned to Mr.
Oliver.
"Have you heard that Porteous has been fired out of the store and
they've got a man down from Tacoma?" he asked.
"No," replied Mr. Oliver indifferently.
"Anyway, you don't seem much astonished."
Mr. Oliver smiled at this. "I can't say I am. What was the trouble?"
"It's generally believed Porteous was tampering with the mails, and that
brings up another thing I want to mention. I'm puzzled about it as well
as pleased."
Harry, unobserved by Mr. Webster, grinned at Frank, looking solemn again
as his father caught his eye.
"Well?" said the latter politely.
"It's just this," said Mr. Webster. "When I came through the settlement
this morning the man who fills Porteous's place gave me a letter. It
requested me to send in a formal application if I was open to have my
place made a postoffice and carry the mails for this and the Carthew
district. They don't pay one very much, but it only means a journey once
a week."
"Then what are you puzzled at?"
"Well," said Mr. Webster, his eyes bent thoughtfully on the fire, "you
and the Carthew folks tried to have a mail carrier appointed some time
ago, and you heard that the authorities were considering your
representations. I guess that's about all they did. They're great on
considering, and as a rule they don't get much further. It strikes me as
curious that they should give you the postoffice now, considering that
they wouldn't do it when you worried them for it. The next point is that
although I applied the other time I don't know anybody in office or any
political boss who would speak for me."
Frank noticed the smile broaden on Harry's face, but Mr. Webster was
intently watching Mr. Oliver, who answered carelessly.
"It's a poor job, one that only a local man could undertake, and I don't
know any one else who wants it," he said. "What are you going to do
about it?"
"Send in the application right away. That's partly what brought me over.
I'll have to get you and two of the boys at Carthew to vouch for me."
"There'll be no trouble about that," Mr. Oliver assured him, after which
they changed the conversation. Before Mr. Webster went away he asked the
boys to spend a day or two with him and do some hunting.
Mr. Oliver let them go at the end of the week, but he said that they had
better meet Mr. Webster at the settlement where Miss Oliver wanted them
to leave an order for some groceries, and that if any letters had
arrived for him one of them must bring them across to the ranch. They
reached the settlement Saturday evening, soon after the weekly mail had
come in. When they had finished their supper at the store Mr. Webster
bundled his mails promiscuously into a flour bag, which he fastened upon
his shoulders with a couple of straps.
"There seems to be quite a lot of letters," remarked Harry as he lifted
up the bag.
Mr. Webster frowned. "Letters!" he growled. "Most of the blamed stuff's
groceries. It strikes me I'm going to earn my dollars. The boys who run
short of sugar or yeast powder or any truck of that kind expect me to
pack it out. Give the thing a heave up. There's the corner of a meat can
working into my ribs."
They set out shortly afterward, following a very bad trail driven like a
tunnel through the bush, and when they had gone a mile or two Mr.
Webster lighted a lantern which he gave to Frank.
"Hold it up and look about," he said. "It's somewhere round here Jardine
has his letter box nailed up on a tree."
Frank presently discovered an empty powder keg fixed to a big fir, and
Mr. Webster, wriggling out of the straps, dropped the bag with a thud.
As it happened, it descended in a patch of mud.
"Hold the light so I can see to sort this truck," he said, and plunged
his hand into the bag. It was white when he brought it out.
"Something's got adrift," he commented. "They never can tie a package
right in the store."
With some difficulty he at last found the letters, though this
necessitated his spreading out most of the rest and the groceries on the
wet soil. Then he deposited those that belonged to Jardine in the keg
and went on again.
Dense darkness filled the narrow rift in the bush and the feeble rays of
the lantern were more bewildering than useful, but they covered another
two miles before they stopped at a second keg, when Webster discovered
that a couple of letters he fished out were stuck together with
half-melted sugar. He tore them apart and rubbed them clean upon his
trousers, smearing out the address as he did so.
"It's lucky I looked at them first, because I couldn't tell whose they
are now," he said. "Anyway, as I guess the stuff hasn't had time to get
inside, Steve will know they're his when he opens them." He raised the
bag a little and examined it. "This thing's surely wet."
"I expect it is," said Harry. "The last time you stopped you dumped it
in the mud. Didn't they give you some sugar for this place at the
store?"
"Why, yes," said Mr. Webster. "I was forgetting it. Hold the lantern
lower, Frank, while I look for it."
He pulled the flour bag wider open and presently produced a big paper
package which seemed to have lost its shape.
"Half the stuff's run out," he added. "That's what has been mussing up
the mail. Pitch this truck out and we'll skip the rest of the sugar out
of the bottom of the bag."
It took them some time to deposit the various bundles of letters and
packets among the wineberry bushes beside the trail, after which Mr.
Webster shook a pound or two of loose wet sugar into the opened package.
It appeared to be mixed with flour and other substances, and Harry
smiled as he glanced at it.
"It's off its color," he remarked.
"That," said Mr. Webster, "will serve Steve right and save me trouble.
The next time he wants sugar he'll walk into the settlement and pack it
out himself. When you've put that truck back the mail will go ahead."
They threw the things back into the bag, but while they were engaged in
this task Harry held up a bundle of letters to the light and separated
two of them from the rest.
"These are dad's," he mused. "It strikes me they'd be safer in my
pocket."
They saw no more powder kegs, but by and by they stopped at a ranch
where they delivered a newspaper and a pound of coffee, and then plodded
on in thick darkness which was only intensified by the patch of
uncertain radiance that flickered upon the trail a yard or two in front
of them. Even this failed them presently when Frank fell and dropped the
lantern. It went out, and neither he nor Harry, who struck a match,
could open it.
"I'm afraid I've bent the catch," said Frank.
"It's not going to matter much," Mr. Webster answered. "I guess we can
fix the thing when we reach my place, and there isn't another ranch
until we come to it."
They trudged along in silence for another hour. The trail seemed darker
than ever, and it was oppressively still. Even the great trunks a few
yards away were invisible, and once or twice Frank walked into the
bushes that clustered among them. At last, however, the sound of running
water came out of the gloom and grew louder until the boy fancied that
there must be a rapid creek somewhere below them. Neither he nor Harry
had been that way before. As they expected to get some shooting, he was
carrying the double gun, which was beginning to feel heavy, while Harry
had brought a rifle. When the roar of water had grown so loud that they
could scarcely hear each other's footsteps, Mr. Webster stopped.
"There's an awkward place close ahead, and you had better let me go in
front," he warned. "Keep a few yards behind and close to the bank on
your left side. The trail goes down a gulch, and there's a steep drop to
the creek."
He moved on until the boys could just see his black and shadowy figure.
The hollow beneath them was filled with impenetrable gloom, and they
went down cautiously, trying to follow him and feeling with their feet
for the edge of the bank on one hand. They had gone some little way when
Mr. Webster seemed to stagger and suddenly disappear. Then there was a
crash amidst the underbrush, a sound which might have been made by a
heavy body rolling down a slope, and a hoarse cry which was almost
drowned by the clamor of the creek.
The boys stopped abruptly, uncertain what to do. Mr. Webster had
evidently fallen down the declivity, but they could not tell where he
was in the darkness, or if it was possible to reach him. Frank fancied
that if he once moved out from the bank he would probably step over a
ledge and plunge down into the creek, which, it was evident, would be of
no service to Mr. Webster. By and by he was sincerely glad to hear a
sound below him which seemed to indicate that the man was endeavoring to
clamber up again. On recalling the incident afterward, he decided that
they had stood waiting about a quarter of a minute.
"We must get down somehow," he said to Harry.
His companion did not answer, but gripped his arm warningly. Then to
Frank's astonishment another sound rose up somewhere in front of them
and a voice followed it.
"Is that you, Webster?" it asked.
"Sure!" was the answer. "I've pitched right down the gulch."
Frank would have scrambled forward, but Harry held him back.
"Hold on!" he said softly. "He doesn't seem hurt."
A crackling and snapping below them suggested that somebody was
cautiously scrambling through the undergrowth toward Mr. Webster, while
the latter was evidently crawling up the ascent. Frank wondered why
Harry had restrained him until a blaze of light suddenly broke out. It
showed a very steep bank with clumps of brush scattered about it
dropping to a foaming creek, Mr. Webster holding on by the stem of a
stunted pine, with the flour bag lying some distance higher up, and
another figure moving toward him. A third man stood on the brink of the
declivity holding a blazing pineknot. Where the boys stood, however,
there was deep shadow.
Mr. Webster, so far as Frank could make out, was gazing at the man
nearest him in astonishment.
"Well," he said sharply, "what do you want?"
"The mail," answered the other. "Stop right where you are!"
Then the meaning of the situation dawned on Frank. At that moment he saw
Mr. Webster scramble forward to intercept the man who was making for the
bag. The latter, however, was nearer it, and he had crept almost up to
it while Mr. Webster was still several yards away. Without a moment's
hesitation, Frank sprang out into the flickering light.
"Keep back!" he shouted. "Don't touch that bag!"
The radiance fell upon the barrel of his gun, and the next moment Harry
emerged from the gloom with his rifle thrust forward. They decided
afterward that the strangers could only have seen two indistinct figures
with weapons in their hands and that there was nothing to indicate that
they were not grown men.
"Hold him up!" shouted Mr. Webster, scrambling forward furiously as if
to seize the man.
The latter stooped swiftly and made a grab at the bag as Frank pitched
up his gun, though he kept the muzzle of it turned a little from the
bent figure, but just then Harry's rifle flashed behind him and there
was sudden darkness as the light fell into a thicket. Confused sounds
followed the detonation, but it became evident to Frank, now quivering
with excitement, that three separate persons were smashing through
scrubby undergrowth as fast as they could manage. Then one of them
stopped while the rest went on.
"Have you got the bag?" cried Harry.
"It's in my hand," said Mr. Webster.
They heard him floundering toward them, while the other sounds grew
fainter, until he emerged from the gloom close beside Frank and threw
the bag at his feet.
"Give me your gun," he said shortly. "Stop where you are!"
He disappeared again, but in another moment they saw him raking in a
clump of brush from which a pale light still flickered, after which he
came back toward them with something blazing feebly in his hand.
"Bring the bag, and be careful how you walk," he said.
When they joined him he was stooping over a short strip of wire
stretched across the trail about a foot above the ground, holding the
pineknot so that the light fell upon it.
"I guess that's the reason I fell down," he said. "You didn't touch that
fellow, Harry."
"I didn't mean to," was the answer. "I wanted to scare him off, and I
was mighty thankful when I saw I'd done it."
"Well," said Mr. Webster, "I expect that was wiser. It would have made
things worse for your father if you'd plugged him. Anyway, they've
cleared and we may as well get on."
"Aren't you hurt?" Frank inquired.
"There's a nasty rip on my leg and my arm feels mighty sore, but that's
all the damage. Seems to me I haven't much to complain of, considering
how far I fell."
He flung the pineknot down into the ravine as he turned away, and they
had crossed the creek and were ascending the other side before one of
them spoke again.
"Did you recognize either of the men?" Harry inquired.
"No," said Mr. Webster. "On the whole I don't know that I'd want to do
it, though I'm kind of sorry I didn't get my hands upon the nearest
fellow. It was those two letters for your father he was after."
"Yes," said Harry gravely, "you're right in that."
The trail got narrower presently and when the boys fell a little behind
Harry laid a hand on Frank's arm.
"I'm not sure that dad and Barclay would have had Webster made mail
carrier if they had expected this," he whispered. "There's no doubt the
dope men are growing bolder."