"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!"