Part 19

“Stiffs, in coffins?” suggested an eager voice.

“I didn't get to hear more. But here they are.”

There was the sudden irruption of a laughing, curious crowd into the bar-room, led by Yuba Bill, the driver. Then the crowd parted, and out of their midst stepped two children, a boy and a girl, the oldest apparently of not more than six years, holding each other's hands. They were coarsely yet cleanly dressed, and with a certain uniform precision that suggested formal charity. But more remarkable than all, around the neck of each was a little steel chain, from which depended the regular check and label of the powerful Express Company, Wells; Fargo & Co., and the words: “To Richard Spindler.” “Fragile.” “With great care.” “Collect on delivery.” Occasionally their little hands went up automatically and touched their labels, as if to show them. They surveyed the crowd, the floor, the gilded bar, and Yuba Bill without fear and without wonder. There was a pathetic suggestion that they were accustomed to this observation.

“Now, Bobby,” said Yuba Bill, leaning back against the bar, with an air half-paternal, half-managerial, “tell these gents how you came here.”

“By Wellth, Fargoth Expreth,” lisped Bobby.

“Whar from?”

“Wed Hill, Owegon.”

“Red Hill, Oregon? Why, it's a thousand miles from here,” said a bystander.

“I reckon,” said Yuba Bill coolly, “they kem by stage to Portland, by steamer to 'Frisco, steamer again to Stockton, and then by stage over the whole line. Allers by Wells, Fargo & Co.'s Express, from agent to agent, and from messenger to messenger. Fact! They ain't bin tetched or handled by any one but the Kempany's agents; they ain't had a line or direction except them checks around their necks! And they've wanted for nothin' else. Why, I've carried heaps o' treasure before, gentlemen, and once a hundred thousand dollars in greenbacks, but I never carried anythin' that was watched and guarded as them kids! Why, the division inspector at Stockton wanted to go with 'em over the line; but Jim Bracy, the messenger, said he'd call it a reflection on himself and resign, ef they didn't give 'em to him with the other packages! Ye had a pretty good time, Bobby, didn't ye? Plenty to eat and drink, eh?”

The two children laughed a little weak laugh, turned each other bashfully around, and then looked up shyly at Yuba Bill and said, “Yeth.”

“Do you know where you are goin'?” asked Starbuck, in a constrained voice.

It was the little girl who answered quickly and eagerly:--

“Yes, to Krissmass and Sandy Claus.”

“To what?” asked Starbuck.

Here the boy interposed with a superior air:--

“Thee meanth Couthin Dick. He'th got Krithmath.”

“Where's your mother?”

“Dead.”

“And your father?”

“In orthpittal.”

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.

*****

Spindler's house, or “Spindler's Splurge,” as Rough and Ready chose to call it, stood above the settlement, on a deforested hillside, which, however, revenged itself by producing not enough vegetation to cover even the few stumps that were ineradicable. A large wooden structure in the pseudo-classic style affected by Westerners, with an incongruous cupola, it was oddly enough relieved by a still more incongruous veranda extending around its four sides, upheld by wooden Doric columns, which were already picturesquely covered with flowering vines and sun-loving roses. Mr. Spindler had trusted the furnishing of its interior to the same contractor who had upholstered the gilded bar-room of the Eureka Saloon, and who had apparently bestowed the same design and material, impartially, on each. There were gilded mirrors all over the house and chilly marble-topped tables, gilt plaster Cupids in the corners, and stuccoed lions “in the way” everywhere. The tactful hands of Mrs. Price had screened some of these with seasonable laurels, fir boughs, and berries, and had imparted a slight Christmas flavor to the house. But the greater part of her time had been employed in trying to subdue the eccentricities of Spindler's amazing relations; in tranquilizing Mrs. “Aunt” Martha Spindler,--the elderly cook before alluded to,--who was inclined to regard the gilded splendors of the house as indicative of dangerous immorality; in restraining “Cousin” Morley Hewlett from considering the dining-room buffet as a bar for “intermittent refreshment;” and in keeping the weak-minded nephew, Phinney Spindler, from shooting at bottles from the veranda, wearing his uncle's clothes, or running up an account in his uncle's name for various articles at the general stores. Yet the unlooked-for arrival of the two children had been the one great compensation and diversion for her. She wrote at once to her nieces a brief account of her miraculous deliverance. “I think these poor children dropped from the skies here to make our Christmas party possible, to say nothing of the sympathy they have created in Rough and Ready for Spindler. He is going to keep them as long as he can, and is writing to the father. Think of the poor little tots traveling a thousand miles to 'Krissmass,' as they call it!--though they were so well cared for by the messengers that their little bodies were positively stuffed like quails. So, you see, dear, we will be able to get along without airing your famous idea. I'm sorry, for I know you're just dying to see it all.”