Jack of the Pony Express Part 26

"It isn't anything--I just got up to get a drink," quickly explained Jack, wishing he had kept still. "Sorry to have disturbed you."

"I haven't been asleep," Jennie confessed, calling down the stairway.

"Isn't it nearly morning?"

"A little after twelve," Jack reported, striking a match and looking at his watch.

Going back to his couch he soon found himself sinking off into a comfortable doze. He really needed natural sleep after his experience that day, and a little later he found it stealing over him. He turned on his side, and, before he knew it, was oblivious to his surroundings.

How long he slept Jack did not know, but he awoke with a start, and he was at once aware that his awakening had been caused by some sudden noise. For a moment he was so confused that he could not think clearly, or recall where he was.

He pa.s.sed his hand across his head, and this slight action seemed to make his brain work. Then he sat up. He was at once aware that something unusual was going on.

There was a dim light shining in through the room where the safe was. And as Jack had left none burning, and as there were no street lights in Golden Crossing, the express rider at once realized that some one had brought a light into the room since he had fallen asleep.

Jack was about to call out, thinking perhaps his aunt or cousin had come down stairs, but he restrained himself.

"I'll just go and see who it is," he thought. A wild idea came to him. He reached under his pillow and brought out his revolver.

"If it's any of the outlaws I'll be ready," he murmured.

Moving with the silence of a cat, Jack, who had taken off his shoes, tiptoed to the door between the two rooms. As he advanced he could hear a succession of small noises. One was a sort of purring sound. Then came the tinkle of metal on metal--a faint sound that would not have been audible but for the deep silence over the place. Then Jack saw a flicker of the light, as though some one or some object had come near enough to it to produce a shadow.

Then, as Jack looked, he saw the outlines of a man's head, and the man seemed bent over, of stooping. Again came the tinkle of metal on metal.

All at once the truth flashed into Jack's mind.

"They're going to blow open the safe" was his thought. "It's the outlaws!

I've caught 'em! They've drilled the safe and are going to blow it open!"

He managed, by going slowly, and trying each board with his foot advanced, to guard against a creak, finally to reach the door that opened into the room where the safe stood.

And there, kneeling on the floor in front of the strong box, was a masked man. He was in front of the safe, and a partly-opened dark lantern gave light enough for Jack to see what was going on.

The safe was not open, but, as Jack looked, and as he was about to give the command: "Hands up!" he saw the masked man suddenly spring back and slide, on rubber-soled shoes, to a far corner.

There was a tiny curl of smoke near the door of the safe. Jack realized, too late, what it was--the fuse attached to a charge of nitroglycerine. The safe was about to be blown open.

And then, ere Jack could spring forward and tear loose the fuse, the explosion came.

It was not loud, but the force of if blew Jack backward, knocking him down.

His head hit on something and, for the moment, he lost consciousness.

CHAPTER XXIII

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 b.o.o.by!" 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 m.u.f.fled 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.