"A close call!" he remarked. "It looked as if she was going slap over us. I couldn't see her sooner because of the sail. She's running into Bannington's."

They heard her whistle a little later, but they were then close in with a shadowy point of land, and looking back Frank made out a faint blur on the water far behind them which he knew must be the other boat. When he pointed it out Harry laughed.

"They can't see us against the land, but I've an idea they'll be in soon enough to learn the steamer didn't pick one of us up," he said. "That will start them wondering why we drove her so hard and where we've gone.

Now you had better get the stove lighted and the supper on."

CHAPTER XXV

THE UNITED STATES MAIL

The boys reached the ranch the next morning, and Mr. Oliver, who followed by a different route a couple of days later, seemed satisfied with the result of his journey.

"If the dope men leave us alone for the next three weeks we're not likely to be troubled with them afterward," he said. "Barclay expects very shortly to be ready for what he calls his coup."

"I suppose he didn't mention exactly when he would bring it off?" Harry remarked.

"No," said Mr. Oliver with a laugh. "Barclay usually waits until he's certain before he moves, and he's not addicted to spoiling things by haste. In the meanwhile you may as well keep your eyes sharply open."

"Won't it be awkward to communicate with him if you have to go to Bannington's every time you mail a letter?" Frank asked.

"That's a point which naturally occurred to me," Mr. Oliver answered.

"There are, however, reasons for believing that Barclay will be able to get over the difficulty."

He said nothing further on the subject, but it cropped up again one evening when Mr. Webster arrived at the ranch in time for supper. He told them that he had finished the bridge he had gone away to build, and when they sat about the stove after the meal was over he turned to Mr.

Oliver.

"Have you heard that Porteous has been fired out of the store and they've got a man down from Tacoma?" he asked.

"No," replied Mr. Oliver indifferently.

"Anyway, you don't seem much astonished."

Mr. Oliver smiled at this. "I can't say I am. What was the trouble?"

"It's generally believed Porteous was tampering with the mails, and that brings up another thing I want to mention. I'm puzzled about it as well as pleased."

Harry, un.o.bserved by Mr. Webster, grinned at Frank, looking solemn again as his father caught his eye.

"Well?" said the latter politely.

"It's just this," said Mr. Webster. "When I came through the settlement this morning the man who fills Porteous's place gave me a letter. It requested me to send in a formal application if I was open to have my place made a postoffice and carry the mails for this and the Carthew district. They don't pay one very much, but it only means a journey once a week."

"Then what are you puzzled at?"

"Well," said Mr. Webster, his eyes bent thoughtfully on the fire, "you and the Carthew folks tried to have a mail carrier appointed some time ago, and you heard that the authorities were considering your representations. I guess that's about all they did. They're great on considering, and as a rule they don't get much further. It strikes me as curious that they should give you the postoffice now, considering that they wouldn't do it when you worried them for it. The next point is that although I applied the other time I don't know anybody in office or any political boss who would speak for me."

Frank noticed the smile broaden on Harry's face, but Mr. Webster was intently watching Mr. Oliver, who answered carelessly.

"It's a poor job, one that only a local man could undertake, and I don't know any one else who wants it," he said. "What are you going to do about it?"

"Send in the application right away. That's partly what brought me over.

I'll have to get you and two of the boys at Carthew to vouch for me."

"There'll be no trouble about that," Mr. Oliver a.s.sured him, after which they changed the conversation. Before Mr. Webster went away he asked the boys to spend a day or two with him and do some hunting.

Mr. Oliver let them go at the end of the week, but he said that they had better meet Mr. Webster at the settlement where Miss Oliver wanted them to leave an order for some groceries, and that if any letters had arrived for him one of them must bring them across to the ranch. They reached the settlement Sat.u.r.day evening, soon after the weekly mail had come in. When they had finished their supper at the store Mr. Webster bundled his mails promiscuously into a flour bag, which he fastened upon his shoulders with a couple of straps.

"There seems to be quite a lot of letters," remarked Harry as he lifted up the bag.

Mr. Webster frowned. "Letters!" he growled. "Most of the blamed stuff's groceries. It strikes me I'm going to earn my dollars. The boys who run short of sugar or yeast powder or any truck of that kind expect me to pack it out. Give the thing a heave up. There's the corner of a meat can working into my ribs."

They set out shortly afterward, following a very bad trail driven like a tunnel through the bush, and when they had gone a mile or two Mr.

Webster lighted a lantern which he gave to Frank.

"Hold it up and look about," he said. "It's somewhere round here Jardine has his letter box nailed up on a tree."

Frank presently discovered an empty powder keg fixed to a big fir, and Mr. Webster, wriggling out of the straps, dropped the bag with a thud.

As it happened, it descended in a patch of mud.

"Hold the light so I can see to sort this truck," he said, and plunged his hand into the bag. It was white when he brought it out.

"Something's got adrift," he commented. "They never can tie a package right in the store."

With some difficulty he at last found the letters, though this necessitated his spreading out most of the rest and the groceries on the wet soil. Then he deposited those that belonged to Jardine in the keg and went on again.

Dense darkness filled the narrow rift in the bush and the feeble rays of the lantern were more bewildering than useful, but they covered another two miles before they stopped at a second keg, when Webster discovered that a couple of letters he fished out were stuck together with half-melted sugar. He tore them apart and rubbed them clean upon his trousers, smearing out the address as he did so.

"It's lucky I looked at them first, because I couldn't tell whose they are now," he said. "Anyway, as I guess the stuff hasn't had time to get inside, Steve will know they're his when he opens them." He raised the bag a little and examined it. "This thing's surely wet."

"I expect it is," said Harry. "The last time you stopped you dumped it in the mud. Didn't they give you some sugar for this place at the store?"

"Why, yes," said Mr. Webster. "I was forgetting it. Hold the lantern lower, Frank, while I look for it."

He pulled the flour bag wider open and presently produced a big paper package which seemed to have lost its shape.

"Half the stuff's run out," he added. "That's what has been mussing up the mail. Pitch this truck out and we'll skip the rest of the sugar out of the bottom of the bag."

It took them some time to deposit the various bundles of letters and packets among the wineberry bushes beside the trail, after which Mr.

Webster shook a pound or two of loose wet sugar into the opened package.

It appeared to be mixed with flour and other substances, and Harry smiled as he glanced at it.

"It's off its color," he remarked.

"That," said Mr. Webster, "will serve Steve right and save me trouble.

The next time he wants sugar he'll walk into the settlement and pack it out himself. When you've put that truck back the mail will go ahead."