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LITTLE SNAP, THE POSTBOY
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[Illustration:
"Looking up with dread expectations of what he was
to witness, the Post Boy reeled back in his saddle."
]
LITTLE SNAP
THE POSTBOY
OR
Working for Uncle Sam
BY
VICTOR ST. CLAIR
AUTHOR OF
"Cast Away in the Jungle," "From Switch to Lever,"
"For Home and Honor," "Zip, The Acrobat," etc.
[Illustration]
PHILADELPHIA
DAVID McKAY, PUBLISHER
610 SOUTH WASHINGTON SQUARE
Copyright, 1903
By STREET & SMITH
Little Snap, The Postboy
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I—A Postboy's Courage 7
II—The Missing Mail 17
III—"I Will Be Back" 28
IV—What Little Snap Saw 33
V—Close Quarters 42
VI—Little Snap's Troubles Increase 50
VII—"The Truth in a Nutshell" 59
VIII—"I am Standing on My Own Feet" 66
IX—A Terrific Trap 75
X—Little Snap's Remarkable Ride 83
XI—The Ride Through Blazed Acre 92
XII—The Postboy's Arrest 99
XIII—A Curious Court 106
XIV—An Unexpected Climax 113
XV—A Long and a Vain Watch 121
XVI—A Lonely Night Ride 129
XVII—Little Snap's Disappointment 136
XVIII—A Perilous Undertaking 143
XIX—The Bushbinder's Plans 150
XX—A Startling Discovery 157
XXI—"What Jack Rimmons Says, Goes" 163
XXII—An Underground Race 172
XXIII—The Registered Letters Again 181
XXIV—Driven to the Wall 187
XXV—Startling Surprises 194
XXVI—A Life for a Life 201
XXVII—Little Snap's Surprise 206
XXVIII—The Strange Horseman 213
XXIX—A River Let Loose 220
XXX—A Race With a Runaway River 225
XXXI—A Startling Relic of the Flood 231
XXXII—The News That Reached Home 238
XXXIII—The Gathering Storm 244
XXXIV—Little Snap Finds a Clew 251
XXXV—The Truth at Last 257
XXXVI—Old Solitaire's Secret 264
XXXVII—Conclusion 270
LITTLE SNAP, THE POSTBOY.
CHAPTER I.
A POSTBOY'S COURAGE.
"Has my letter come to-day?"
The dark bay horse—as fine a specimen of equine beauty and worth as ever
came from the famed Blue Grass regions—ridden by the Postboy of the
Kanawha, came to a standstill simultaneously with the utterance of the
earnest, pleading tone, knowing in its almost human intelligence that
its rider would be challenged at this particular spot and the question
repeated which had been asked daily without variation for six months.
Little Snap had expected it, and on the watch, had discovered, a quarter
of a mile back, a tall, gaunt figure clothed in skins and leaning
heavily on a gnarled staff, standing by the wayside, under the shadows
of a huge live oak.
An additional wildness was lent to the strange man's figure by the
presence of a gray squirrel on either shoulder, while others gamboled at
his feet, or ran up and down his lank form.
"Not to-day," replied the postboy, with an unusual softness in his
voice; "not to-day, Uncle Solitaire."
"Please excuse me for troubling you, but I felt sure she would send me
that letter to-day. I have waited so long. But take this to her, and I
am certain that to-morrow I shall get my letter."
Then, as he had done so many times before, he handed the postboy a
carefully folded piece of coarse paper, thanked him in a tremulous voice
as he took it, to vanish the next moment into the heart of the
wilderness hemming in the wild landscape.
"I wonder who he can be," said Little Snap, speaking his thoughts aloud,
moved as he always was by the pathos of the meetings in this lonely
place. "I would give my quarter's salary to know his life secret; but
that is something no one I have ever met knows. It is singular that he
should be able to bury himself in these woods so completely as to defy
all attempts to find his stopping place. I suppose this paper is as
blank as all the others have been."
Though he could not have told the reason for it, he had always unfolded
these scraps of paper before throwing them away. He always felt, too, a
sort of awed feeling as he gazed on the spotless pages, innocent of
conveying any message, unless outside of the power of pen or pencil.
His surprise may be imagined on this occasion, therefore, when he
unfolded the sheet to find a few lines of closely written manuscript.
His astonishment increasing, he read:
"Keep your eyes open; step lightly on Eagle's Tracks; fly through the
Devil's Wash Bowl!"
The paper contained no signature, and puzzled over its meaning, Little
Snap read it several times before he crumpled it in the hollow of his
hand.
"Some foolish whim of his," he said to himself. "Come, Jack, we must
move faster than we have, or we shan't get to Six Roads until midnight."
As young as he was, Little Snap, whose name, by the way, was Dix Lewis,
though he was seldom addressed thus, had been carrying the mail between
Upper Loop on the Kanawha and Union Six Roads, at the very base of the
backbone of the Alleghany Mountains, for about two years.
The distance between the two isolated towns was nearer forty than thirty
miles, but he had never lost a trip yet, and he had never felt in better
spirits than on this particular afternoon.
The valley of the Great Kanawha, as the lower section of this "River of
the Woods" is called, is one of the most fertile regions to be found in
West Virginia; but beginning near the Greenbrier Uplands, the stream
finds its course often through rocky gateways. Particularly is this the
case where a narrow gorge in the Great Flat Top Mountains allow the
water to escape from the rock-bound basin lying between that rugged
ridge of earth and Greenbrier Mountain.
The gnarled live oak, with its blasted top, where Little Snap had met
Old Solitaire so many times, stood on the west side of the ascent
leading to the Narrows, where the road wound over a spur of the
mountain, to descend into one of the wildest valleys even the hackneyed
landscape of the Old Dominion can show.
For nearly a mile, a natural shelf of rock formed the roadbed, which
actually hung out over the chasm of the Kanawha, that found its way
along the rocky bottom a hundred feet below.
Just beyond the Narrows in the first stage of the descent was a place
called "Eagle's Tracks," where a bolt of lightning or some other work of
nature had torn the rocks asunder so as to make the passage more
difficult than at any other spot.
As he reached this locality the postboy instinctively looked about him,
as if expecting some unseen foe would spring upon him from behind the
bowlders piled one on the other.
Almost at his feet lay the rock-rimmed valley known by the grewsome name
of "Devil's Wash Bowl."
The ascent on the opposite side was less abrupt, while in the far
distance, rising high above all the lesser ranges, loomed the Alleghany
Mountains, looking like a mighty wave on the sea of space.
But Little Snap had passed through this rugged scenery too often for his
gaze to rest upon it now.
"Pah!" he exclaimed, "I am foolish. Of course, they were but idle words,
though it does——"
"Hold up, younker!" suddenly broke in a harsh voice, giving an abrupt
ending to his low speech. "We have a word to say to ye."
Simultaneous with the command, two burly figures sprang from behind a
big bowlder by the wayside, and while he who spoke leveled a
short-barreled shotgun at his head, the second seized hold of Jack's
bit.
"What do you mean by? stopping me?" demanded the surprised postboy. "Let
go there, Hawk Burrnock, so I can pass on."
"In a minnit, Dix Lewis; don't git onpatient, fer ye hev got time 'nough
to git to Six Roads on tick. Ye hev a letter we want."
"Then come along with me and you can get it at the post office."
"We want it here—now!" and the firearm in the man's hand shook
ominously.
"But I have no right to open the mail pouch on the road like this. If I
am not mistaken, your mail comes to the Hollow Tree. Mr. Shag will let
you have it there."
"He won't, younker, 'cos ye air goin' to let us hev it here!"
Little Snap knew the man by sight, but better by reputation as one of
the most dangerous men living, and belonging to a gang called
"bushbinders."
"I tell you I am not allowed to open the mail anywhere. Come along——"
"Mebbe ye air 'fraid we'll rob it; but to show ye thet we air on th'
square, we'll stand back ten feet, while ye git out th' document. It's
sent to dad, Bird Burrnock. Kem, don't keep us waitin' till dark. I
sw'ar no Dan Shag shall open a letter b'longin' to our family."
"Yas; hurry up," added the other, who was a brother of the first
speaker.
Little Snap knew that his situation was a desperate one, and that there
was small chance of his getting off without yielding to the ruffians.
Still he quickly decided to baffle them if it lay in his power.
How to do that was a difficult question.
"Air ye goin' to do it?" demanded Burrnock, "or shall we hev to take it
from ye? 'Pears to me ye oughter thank us fer bein' perlite 'nough to
let ye handle the ol' sack."
"I repeat that I cannot do it, as much as I would like to oblige you. It
would be against——"
"Bah! ye could do yit ef ye felt like yit. Uncle Sam need never know ye
hev tampered with yit, 'less ye air fool 'nough to tell. Kem, once more,
an' fer the las' time, I ax ye to hand over dad's letter. Why, it's
his'n, an' ye hev no bizness to keep yit."
Little Snap had already formed a plan of action, which, if desperate,
was only in keeping with his situation.
He said:
"You say you will stand back ten feet, and will not touch me while I am
finding the letter?"
"Ye hev coined my idee, only there's to be no foolin'. Shoot ye, true ez
preachin', ef ye show the fust sign o' treachery. D'ye cave?"
"I'll do all I agree, if you will keep your word. As I dismount, you
must step back, and upon your knees you must promise you will never tell
a living soul I opened that mail pouch."
As Little Snap spoke he slipped from the saddle into the middle of the
road, the outlaws at the same time falling back a few feet.
"Rip th' ol' sack open lively, 'cos we an't got enny time to fool 'way,"
growled Buzzard Burrnock, as he loosened his hold on the bridle.
"You promise never to betray me?" questioned the postboy, putting his
hand up to the mail pouch, though not to remove it from its position on
faithful Jack's back, but to be sure that it was securely in place.
"We promise," declared the outlawed brothers in the same breath.
"Away, Jack, old boy!" cried Little Snap, sharply, dealing his trained
horse a smart blow with the flat of his hand. "On to Greenbrier!"
Then, before the surprised twain could recover enough to prevent him,
the gallant Jack leaped forward at the top of his speed, his body
swaying to and fro, striking Buzzard Burrnock in such a way as to send
him headlong down the abyss yawning on the right side of the road.
Hawk Burrnock uttered a yell of dismay as he witnessed his brother's
fate, and saw the horse dash onward down the descending way.
"The fiends take——"
He was raising his gun to fire at Little Snap as he spoke; but, in the
midst of his speech and action, the intrepid postboy snatched his
revolver from under his jacket, and, springing forward, dealt the outlaw
a blow with its butt over the head that caused him to sink to the ground
with a groan.
"I didn't like to do it," said Little Snap, as he stood over the
prostrate figure, "but he drove me to it. I do not think he is killed.
He will soon come around all right. Wonder how Buzz Burrnock has fared,"
stepping at the same time to the edge of the bluff to look into the
depths.
A dark object caught in a thicket of bushes clinging to the side of the
chasm twenty or thirty feet below soon resolved itself into the figure
of a man.
"He isn't as bad off as he might be," mused Little Snap. "Well, I will
leave the precious pair to look after themselves."
The clatter of a horse's hoofs in the Devil's Wash Bowl at that moment
told that Jack had reached the foot of the descent and was beginning to
climb the opposite heights.
The postboy quickly placed his hand to his lips in such a way as to emit
a short, sharp whistle, which rang up and down the valley with a
peculiar clearness.