"I mean those planks never came loose by themselves. I stuck a couple of branches in the holes. Look out when you ride over."
"Oh—I—I will. Thanks!" the man exclaimed, almost as an afterthought.
Then Jack rode on, and Tantrell passed him, giving the lad a sharp glance in the gloom, for the moon was now down below the hills.
Rather shaken by his night's adventure, and a bit anxious, Jack finally reached his own cottage. He turned in there, preferring to do so rather than to awaken Mrs. Watson and her family at this hour, though he was anxious to know how his father was feeling.
"But I guess he must be all right, or they'd have sent me some word," reasoned Jack.
He put his horse in the stable, and, after a hasty lunch from the cupboard, turned into his own room, and slept soundly until morning. He was up early in order to deliver the mail for the stage which would soon go out, and among the things he turned over to the driver was the package that had so nearly been lost.
"I'm glad to get rid of that," he said to Jed Monty. "It looks as if it's worth something," and he pointed to the many seals.
"That's so, it does," Jed replied. "Guess I'll stow it in a safe place myself."
Jack gave a warning about the missing planks of the bridge, and the road commissioner promised to have repairs made. The lad said nothing of his suspicions that the planks had intentionally been loosened, for he felt it would do no good.
"I'll just keep my eyes open myself," he reasoned, "and maybe I can find out a few things. It might be that some one who wants to be a pony express rider in my place might try to make trouble for me in that way. Maybe they didn't actually want to harm me or my horse, but they might have wanted me to lose some mail. But I didn't!"