“Come with me to see how we do things,” he invited Andy.  “Bring along those two mail bags.”

Andy had already noticed the bags.  One was quite large.  It was made of canvas, with a snap lock.  The other was of leather, and smaller in size.

Swinging these over his shoulder, Ripley entered the post-office.  He showed his credentials from the circus, and was admitted behind the letter cases of the places.

Andy watched him receive over a hundred letters and packages, receipting for the same on registry delivery cards.  This lot he placed in the small leather bag.

The ordinary mail lay sorted out for the circus on a stamping table.  This went into the big canvas pouch.

The circus newspaper mail was ready tagged in a hempen sack.  Ripley carried this out to Andy.

“Toss it in the wagon,” he ordered, following with the letter pouches.

Andy opened the back doors of the wagon and tossed in the newspaper bag.

“Say, back in a minute,” observed Ripley, depositing his own burdens on the front wagon seat.

Andy stood watching him.  Ripley rounded a corner in the alley where a wooden finger indicated a side entrance to a hotel bar.  Ripley’s failing was manifest, and Andy decided that he did, indeed, need a guardian.

The wagon stood on a space quite secluded from the street.  Near the entrance to the alley several men were lounging about.

Andy carried the leather pouch with him as he went around to the open doors at the rear of the wagon.

He climbed in, and stowed the newspaper bag and what packages they had already collected in a tidy pile.  Ripley had indicated that there was quite a miscellaneous load to pick up about town before they returned to the circus.

Andy was thus employed when the rear doors came together with a sharp snap.

They shut him in a close prisoner, for they were self-locking, on the outside only.

Andy, in complete darkness, now groped back to the doors.  He heard quick, suppressed tones outside.

The vehicle jolted.  Some one had jumped to the front seat.  A whip snapped.  Old Lute started up with a bound, throwing Andy off his footing.  “Send her spinning!” reached him in a muffled voice from the front seat.

“Jump with the bag when we turn that old shed,” answered other tones.  “Why, say!  There’s only one mail bag.”

“I saw them bring out two.  I am dead sure of it.”

“And this is only common letters.”

“How do you know?”

“Jim Tapp described them—­’get the leather one,’ he says.  ’It’s got the money mail in it.’”

“Then where is it?”

“The kid must have it.”

“Inside the wagon?”

“Yes.”

“Whoa.”

With a sharp jerk the horse was pulled to a halt.

Andy heard the two men on the seat jump to the ground.  He knew that their motive was robbery.  He knew further that this was another plot of bad Jim Tapp, the friend and associate of criminals.