THE ESCAPE
Jack did not remain senseless long. When he recovered he became aware of a
confused shouting, and an acrid smell of smoke filled his nostrils.
"Jack! Jack!" he heard Jennie and her mother shouting. "Jack, are you
hurt?"
By a great effort, overcoming the faintness that seemed to be returning,
Jack scrambled to his feet. It was dead black in the place now.
"I'm all right!" Jack cried, "but something has happened. They've been here
all right Stay up there until I call you."
He struck a match, for he had a box in readiness in his pocket.
A glance into the room where the safe stood showed what havoc had been
wrought by the explosion. It was not much, for only a small charge had been
used. But the door of the safe was blown off, and some damage was done to
the fixtures and furniture of the place.
The interior of the strong box--for it was that and nothing more, being an
old-fashioned safe--was plainly exposed to view. Jack was in front of it on
the jump. Lighting another match he peered within.
"They're gone!" he cried aloud. "He's got the Argent letters! And me
sleeping right beside them! This is fierce!"
With trembling fingers, and a deep sense of humiliation in his heart, Jack
lighted a lamp. But even with this greater light there was no trace of the
missing packet. Only that seemed to have been taken, as far as Jack could
make out.
But now Jennie and her mother, frightened and alarmed, were begging to know
what had happened. There was no trace of the masked man. He had slipped out
while Jack lay unconscious, our hero thought. Though, indeed, he felt
little like a hero just then.
"Oh, Jack, what is it? Can't we come down? Are you hurt?" Jennie begged.
"No, I'm not hurt. Come down if you like. They blew open the safe!"
"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Blake, and there was fear and alarm in her voice.
Certainly any one might fear those unscrupulous outlaws, who seemed to halt
at nothing to gain their ends.
For a moment Jack gazed dumbly at the ruin wrought. His eyes sought for
some trace of the package he had done so much to bring through with safety,
but which, after all, had been taken while he slept. Certainly it was an
unfortunate and distressing affair.
"Oh, isn't it awful!" gasped Jennie, as she and her mother picked their way
through the confusion of furniture in the room, and looked at the looted
safe. "It's just terrible!"
"Jack, sound an alarm at once!" cried Mrs. Blake, recognizing the need for
quick action, "Fire your revolver out of the window--yell--do something!"
"Of course! And here I stand like a booby!" Jack cried. "We must get a
posse after that fellow!"
An open window showed how the robber had entered and gone. Jack thrust his
weapon outside and fired the five shots in quick succession. The explosion
by which the safe was shattered did not appear to have roused any of the
townspeople. Probably the report was too muffled to carry far.
But Jack's shots, ringing out in the open, were heard, and soon windows
began to go up. Heads were thrust out, and there came many demands to know
what was going on.
"Post office safe blown and robbed!" cried Jack. "It was done by one man,
though there may have been more. We must get after them!"
"That's what we must!" cried Tim Mullane, one of the first on the scene.
Jack slipped on his shoes, and, with a lantern, hurried across to where
Sunger was stabled. As he approached the place the open door made his heart
sink.
"If he has taken Sunger--" he faltered.
That was what the masked robber had done. The pony's stall was vacant. Jack
felt a fierce longing to do something desperate. This was the last straw.
"Sunger gone! Sunger gone!" Jack repeated, blankly.
He did not want to believe it, but there was nothing else to do. The masked
robber had made his escape on Jack's speedy mount.
By this time all those living in the vicinity of the post office were
aroused. They came, hastily dressed, mostly men and boys, to crowd into the
small place and look at the wrecked safe.
"That job was done by professionals all right," said the town marshal.
"That's no amateur work. He just put some of the nitroglycerine in a crack
between the door and the casing, or maybe in a hole he bored, and touched
it off with a fuse. Yes, it was a neat job."
"Neat!" Jock exclaimed, rather indignantly. "When he took that valuable
package? Neat!"
"Oh well, you know what I mean," the marshal said. "Now, boys, we've got to
get these fellows, and get after them hard!"
"I only saw one," Jack put in.
"Well, he probably had confederates. Now, boys, get your horses and we'll
hit the trail. There's only two he could take, and we'll cover 'em both.
You come along, too, Jack, that is if you feel able. I see you got a cut on
your head."
Jack put up his hand. It came away bloody, and Jennie screamed.
"It's only a little cut where I fell, when the force of the explosion
knocked me down," Jack said. Up to then, so great had been the excitement,
he had not been aware of the slight injury.
"Well get on your pony then, and come along," the marshal urged him. "We'll
want you to identify the fellow if we catch him. That is if you can."
"I'm not sure I could," Jack said. "I only saw his back, and he wore a
mask."
"Well, come along anyhow. Hop on your pony and--"
"I can't!" Jack exclaimed. "The fellow took Sunger!"
"He did!" the marshal cried. "Well, now we certainly must get him! If he's
a horse thief, as well as a safe-blower we sure will get him! Scatter,
boys! Be lively! Jack, I'll lend you a horse. Come on now. Jim Hickey, you
lead one bunch over the Tuckerton trail, and I'll head another on the road
to Rainbow Ridge. But most likely the fellow will take to the mountains and
hide out for a spell."
"He won't be very likely to go to Rainbow Ridge," said Jack.
"Why not?"
"Because he's got a valuable package of letters and mining documents
addressed to Mr. Argent of that place. He wouldn't go there."
"I don't know," returned the marshal. "He wouldn't stay there, but he might
go through that way."
It did not take long to organize two posses, and Jack went with the one led
by the marshal. The young express rider bestrode a borrowed steed, and
though it was good enough, as horses go, it was not at all like his beloved
Sunger.
"I wonder if I'll ever get him back," mused the lad, as he trotted along
beside the others.
"A measly horse thief!" muttered the marshal. "We'll get him if it takes a
year."
In the West horse-stealing is a crime almost on a par with killing; for out
there a man's life often depends on his horse, and if a thief takes the
horse away he may also be responsible for the death of the man. That is why
horse-stealing is visited with such swift and sure vengeance when the
culprit is caught.
Since there was a moon that night, there was fairly good light to see to
follow the mountain trails. The robber had not much of a start, but he was
riding Jack's fleet pony, and that, in itself, meant a great deal, for
there were few horses in that part of the country who could distance him.
Over the trails they rode, and, as they went, the hope of soon catching the
robber grew less and less.
"I'm afraid he's escaped us all right," the marshal said, ruefully. "But
we'll get him yet. I'll never let a horse thief get the best of me!"
"You seem to forget that he also took those valuable letters," Jack
remarked.
"No, I'm not forgetting it," the marshal said, "but to my way of thinking
that ain't half so bad a crime as taking your horse. And I'd say the same
thing if he took any other horse, or one of mine. I just naturally hate a
horse thief!"
"That's right!" chimed in several of the men in the posse.
There were no places, or, rather, only one or two places, along the
mountain trail, where inquiries could be made as to whether or not the
robber--or some night-rider--had passed. But at such lonely cabins as Jack
and his friends came to they roused the inmates and put their questions.
"Seems to me I did hear a hoss gallopin' about an hour back," said one old
man. "I thought maybe it was the pony express goin' through, though, so I
didn't pay no attention."
"I wish it had been the pony express," murmured Jack regretfully. "If I had
taken the letters on the night ride I might have gotten safely through with
them."
"I don't hardly believe it," the marshal told him. "I guess those outlaws
were watching the trail. They were bound to get them, and when they found
you weren't going through with 'em they came in and blowed the safe."
"I suppose so," murmured Jack.