XXX—A Race With a Runaway River 225 XXXI—A Startling Relic of the Flood 231 XXXII—The News That Reached Home 238 XXXIII—The Gathering Storm 244 XXXIV—Little Snap Finds a Clew 251 XXXV—The Truth at Last 257 XXXVI—Old Solitaire's Secret 264 XXXVII—Conclusion 270 LITTLE SNAP, THE POSTBOY. CHAPTER I. A POSTBOY'S COURAGE. "Has my letter come to-day?" The dark bay horse—as fine a specimen of equine beauty and worth as ever came from the famed Blue Grass regions—ridden by the Postboy of the Kanawha, came to a standstill simultaneously with the utterance of the earnest, pleading tone, knowing in its almost human intelligence that its rider would be challenged at this particular spot and the question repeated which had been asked daily without variation for six months. Little Snap had expected it, and on the watch, had discovered, a quarter of a mile back, a tall, gaunt figure clothed in skins and leaning heavily on a gnarled staff, standing by the wayside, under the shadows of a huge live oak. An additional wildness was lent to the strange man's figure by the presence of a gray squirrel on either shoulder, while others gamboled at his feet, or ran up and down his lank form. "Not to-day," replied the postboy, with an unusual softness in his voice; "not to-day, Uncle Solitaire." "Please excuse me for troubling you, but I felt sure she would send me that letter to-day. I have waited so long. But take this to her, and I am certain that to-morrow I shall get my letter." Then, as he had done so many times before, he handed the postboy a carefully folded piece of coarse paper, thanked him in a tremulous voice as he took it, to vanish the next moment into the heart of the wilderness hemming in the wild landscape. "I wonder who he can be," said Little Snap, speaking his thoughts aloud, moved as he always was by the pathos of the meetings in this lonely place. "I would give my quarter's salary to know his life secret; but that is something no one I have ever met knows. It is singular that he should be able to bury himself in these woods so completely as to defy all attempts to find his stopping place. I suppose this paper is as blank as all the others have been." Though he could not have told the reason for it, he had always unfolded these scraps of paper before throwing them away. He always felt, too, a sort of awed feeling as he gazed on the spotless pages, innocent of conveying any message, unless outside of the power of pen or pencil. His surprise may be imagined on this occasion, therefore, when he unfolded the sheet to find a few lines of closely written manuscript. His astonishment increasing, he read: