"Why, what's the matter?" her mother asked, in some surprise.
"Oh, it makes me nervous when any one speaks about Jack's not being back.
It—it's just as if—as if something had happened to him!" she faltered.
"Oh sure, miss, what could happen to him?" asked Tim, seeing with his Irish quickness "which way the wind blew."
"Nothing, of course," Jennie went on. "He just rode out to get the mail because the stage was broken down. Maybe he knows there is nothing important in it, so he can stay here all night."
"Of course," agreed Mrs. Blake. But to herself she said. "I do wish Jack would come!"
There was nothing to do, however, save wait, and that is often the hardest kind of work, as it is certainly the most nervous. Jennie and her mother busied themselves about the post office, Jennie asking the advice of Mrs. Blake on certain matters connected with the reports she had to send in to the officials.
"I suppose there will be a real post office inspector along some day to go over my accounts," she ventured.
"Perhaps," her mother admitted. "And if any more bogus ones come on the scene, I hope I'm here—or that Jack is."
"Yes, Jack routed that other chap finely," said Jennie.
And so they waited for the return of the pony express rider.