There was a laugh somewhere on the outskirts of the crowd.  Every one faced angrily in that direction, but the laugher had disappeared.  Yuba Bill, however, sent his voice after him.  “Yes, in hospital!  Funny, ain’t it?—­amoosin’ place!  Try it.  Step over here, and in five minutes, by the living Hoky, I’ll qualify you for admission, and not charge you a cent!” He stopped, gave a sweeping glance of dissatisfaction around him, and then, leaning back against the bar, beckoned to some one near the door, and said in a disgusted tone, “You tell these galoots how it happened, Bracy.  They make me sick!”

Thus appealed to, Bracy, the express messenger, stepped forward in Yuba Bill’s place.

“It’s nothing particular, gentlemen,” he said, with a laugh, “only it seems that some man called Spindler, who lives about here, sent an invitation to the father of these children to bring his family to a Christmas party.  It wasn’t a bad sort of thing for Spindler to do, considering that they were his poor relations, though they didn’t know him from Adam,—­was it?” He paused; several of the bystanders cleared their throats, but said nothing.  “At least,” resumed Bracy, “that’s what the boys up at Red Hill, Oregon, thought, when they heard of it.  Well, as the father was in hospital with a broken leg, and the mother only a few weeks dead, the boys thought it mighty rough on these poor kids if they were done out of their fun because they had no one to bring them.  The boys couldn’t afford to go themselves, but they got a little money together, and then got the idea of sendin’ ’em by express.  Our agent at Red Hill tumbled to the idea at once; but he wouldn’t take any money in advance, and said he would send ’em ‘C.  O. D.’ like any other package.  And he did, and here they are!  That’s all!  And now, gentlemen, as I’ve got to deliver them personally to this Spindler, and get his receipt and take off their checks, I reckon we must toddle.  Come, Bill, help take ’em up!”

“Hold on!” said a dozen voices.  A dozen hands were thrust into a dozen pockets; I grieve to say some were regretfully withdrawn empty, for it was a hard season in Rough and Ready.  But the expressman stepped before them, with warning, uplifted hand.

“Not a cent, boys,—­not a cent!  Wells, Fargo’s Express Company don’t undertake to carry bullion with those kids, at least on the same contract!” He laughed, and then looking around him, said confidentially in a lower voice, which, however, was quite audible to the children, “There’s as much as three bags of silver in quarter and half dollars in my treasure box in the coach that has been poured, yes, just showered upon them, ever since they started, and have been passed over from agent to agent and messenger to messenger,—­enough to pay their passage from here to China!  It’s time to say quits now.  But bet your life, they are not going to that Christmas party poor!”

He caught up the boy, as Yuba Bill lifted the little girl to his shoulder, and both passed out.  Then one by one the loungers in the bar-room silently and awkwardly followed, and when the barkeeper turned back from putting away his decanters and glasses, to his astonishment the room was empty.