A crackling and snapping below them suggested that somebody was cautiously scrambling through the undergrowth toward Mr. Webster, while the latter was evidently crawling up the ascent. Frank wondered why Harry had restrained him until a blaze of light suddenly broke out. It showed a very steep bank with clumps of brush scattered about it dropping to a foaming creek, Mr. Webster holding on by the stem of a stunted pine, with the flour bag lying some distance higher up, and another figure moving toward him. A third man stood on the brink of the declivity holding a blazing pineknot. Where the boys stood, however, there was deep shadow. Mr. Webster, so far as Frank could make out, was gazing at the man nearest him in astonishment. "Well," he said sharply, "what do you want?" "The mail," answered the other. "Stop right where you are!" Then the meaning of the situation dawned on Frank. At that moment he saw Mr. Webster scramble forward to intercept the man who was making for the bag. The latter, however, was nearer it, and he had crept almost up to it while Mr. Webster was still several yards away. Without a moment's hesitation, Frank sprang out into the flickering light. "Keep back!" he shouted. "Don't touch that bag!" The radiance fell upon the barrel of his gun, and the next moment Harry emerged from the gloom with his rifle thrust forward. They decided afterward that the strangers could only have seen two indistinct figures with weapons in their hands and that there was nothing to indicate that they were not grown men. "Hold him up!" shouted Mr. Webster, scrambling forward furiously as if to seize the man. The latter stooped swiftly and made a grab at the bag as Frank pitched up his gun, though he kept the muzzle of it turned a little from the bent figure, but just then Harry's rifle flashed behind him and there was sudden darkness as the light fell into a thicket. Confused sounds followed the detonation, but it became evident to Frank, now quivering with excitement, that three separate persons were smashing through scrubby undergrowth as fast as they could manage. Then one of them stopped while the rest went on. "Have you got the bag?" cried Harry. "It's in my hand," said Mr. Webster. They heard him floundering toward them, while the other sounds grew fainter, until he emerged from the gloom close beside Frank and threw the bag at his feet. "Give me your gun," he said shortly. "Stop where you are!" He disappeared again, but in another moment they saw him raking in a clump of brush from which a pale light still flickered, after which he came back toward them with something blazing feebly in his hand. "Bring the bag, and be careful how you walk," he said. When they joined him he was stooping over a short strip of wire stretched across the trail about a foot above the ground, holding the pineknot so that the light fell upon it. "I guess that's the reason I fell down," he said. "You didn't touch that fellow, Harry."