“Royal, you must watch!” said the boy.  “Watch, Royal, watch!” Then, with a strengthy fling of his arm, he hurled the precious bag of registered mail over the rim of the precipice, far down into the canyon, two hundred feet below.  For an instant the dog stood rigid.  Then, like the needle to the north, he turned, held his sensitive head high in the air for a moment, sniffed audibly and was gone.  Then again came that low, long whistle.  The horses’ ears went erect, and Maurice sat silent, grasping the reins and peering ahead through the now lessening rain.  But, with all his young courage, his heart weakened when a voice spoke directly behind him.  It said: 

“Who are you?”

He turned and faced three men, and, looking directly into the eyes of the roughest-seeming one of the trio, he replied, quietly: 

“I think you know who I am.”

“Humph!  Cool, I must say!” answered the first speaker.  “Well, perhaps we can warm you up a bit; but maybe you can save us some trouble by telling us where old Delorme is.”

“At home,” said Maurice.

“And you’ve brought the mall in place of Delorme, I suppose?  Well, so much the better for us.  I’ll trouble you to hand me out that bag of registered stuff.”

The man ceased speaking, his hand on the rim of the front wheel.

“I have no registered stuff,” the boy answered, truthfully.  “Just six common mail bags.  Do you wish them?  As I am only one boy against three men, I suppose there is not much use resisting.”  Maurice’s lip curled in a half sneer, and his eyes never left the big bully’s face.

“A lie won’t work this time, young fellow!” the man threatened.  “Boys, go through that wagon! go over every inch of it now; you’ll find the stuff all right.”

The other two men emptied the entire load into the trail, then turned and stared at their leader.

“This is a bluff!  Rip open those bags!” he growled.  And the next moment the contents of the six bags were sprawling in the mud.  They contained nothing but ordinary letters and newspapers.

“Sold!” blurted out the man.  “We might have known that any yarn ‘Saturday Jim’ told us would be a lie.  He couldn’t give a man a straight tip to save his life!  Come on, boys!  There’s nothing doing this trip!” And, swinging about, he turned up an unbroken trail that opened on some hidden pass to the “front.”  His two pals followed at his heels, muttering sullenly over their ill success.

“No,” said Maurice to himself.  “You’re quite right, gentlemen!  There’s nothing doing this trip!” But, aloud, he only spoke gently to his wearied horses as he unhitched and secured them to the rear of the wagon, gathered the scattered mail, and then scanned the sky narrowly.  The storm was over, but the firs still thrashed their tops in the wind, the clouds still trailed and circled about the mountain summit.  For a full hour Maurice sat quietly and thought things.  What was to be