"Oh, if that's the way you feel about it, I don't want to take any of your
stuff," snapped Jack, filled with indignation. "But I've made good so far,
and I expect to keep on."

"Huh! Maybe you will, an' maybe you won't!" was the snarling retort.

It was quite dark when Jack finally started with the mail. He also had
several express packages, one of which was securely sealed, indicating that
it contained valuables.

"Guess I'll stow that away in an inside pocket," Jack said to himself, and
he suited the action to the words.

The first part of the trail leading out from Golden Crossing was not
especially bad, and Jack ambled along it slowly enough. About two miles out
from the settlement he had to cross, on a rather frail wooden bridge, a
rushing mountain stream.

As Jack neared the middle of the bridge he felt a plank suddenly give way
with the pony. In an instant he clapped his heels to the side of the horse,
and slapped him sharply on the flank.

Sunger sprang forward, and only just in time, for in another second he
would have stepped through a hole in the bridge where a plank had fallen
off into the stream below. And had the pony fallen Jack would probably have
been thrown over the bridge railing into the water.