"And I'll help, too!" cried the young pony express rider.
"I knew you would, Cousin Jack!" Jennie exclaimed, clapping her hands. "But now we must talk business. Let me have your slips to sign, and here is a registered letter that you'd better put in an inside pocket where the stage robbers won't find it," and she laughed merrily at her joke.
There was considerable routine work attached to the post office and to the pony express route, and for some time Jack and Jennie were busy over this. The mail and express matter which Jack had brought in on the back of his pony, Sunger, had already been sent off on the outgoing stage.
"Will you ride back to-night, after the other stage comes in, or will you stay here?" asked Mrs. Blake.
"I guess I'll stay," Jack said. "But I can go back as far as Painted Post," naming a mountain settlement a few miles east of Golden Crossing. "I stopped there on my way here, and Harry Ward said he was going to ride in to Rainbow Ridge to a dance to-night. I can have him take a message for me, saying the mail will be late. And he can also tell my father that I'll stay over night, and be in early to-morrow morning."
"That would be a good idea," said Mrs. Blake. "We'll try and make you comfortable, Jack."
"Oh, you won't have to try very hard," he laughed. Jennie blushed and smiled, and Mrs. Blake looked wise.
Jack spent that afternoon helping Jennie straighten up her post office, for she had determined on a new arrangement of tables and desks, which Mrs. Blake had never had time to settle on.
"It's your post office, Jennie," her mother remarked. "Do just as you please as far as the regulations permit."
The in-coming mail was later than had been reported, and did not arrive until nearly dark. In such cases, when a night trip would be necessary over the mountain trail between Golden Crossing and Rainbow Ridge, the pony express rider was permitted to postpone his trip until the next day. The trail was rather dangerous at night, though on occasions, when there had been a bright moon and some important letters and express packages had come in, Mr. Bailey made the night trip. Jack had done so once, but he did not greatly care to do so again.