"The Panama! When was the Panama due?"
"On the nineteenth, bub."
But would she come? Supposing she were late. Then those mothers might be late, too, for Christmas! But she was not late; no, sir; for at sunset of the eighteenth, see, up went the two arms of the signal on Telegraph Hill, extended horizontally to announce: "Side-wheel steamer entering the Golden Gate." And presently there came the Panama, surging majestically through the channel, and rounding to before the city.
That was a long night, intervening before the passengers might land. Charley and Billy slept scarcely a wink. They were at the wharf bright and early—but no earlier than an army of other persons almost as excited as they. The Panama began to unload her passengers; the usual fleet of skiffs and ship's boats put out, filled, from her side.
Charley and Billy peered expectantly. Supposing, after all, those mothers had missed the Panama and had not come. But no! That was they, wasn't it, in the second boat? Yes! Hurrah and hurrah! Forward bolted Charley; forward bolted Billy; and delivered such a series of frantic hugs that their mothers simply had to know them, in spite of tan and clothes.
"Why!" gasped Charley's mother, holding him off a moment, to gain breath and to make sure. "How well you look! Where's your father? Is he all right? When do we get to the mine? Are things going well? Oh, Charley, but I'm glad to see you!"
"Everything's splendid," panted Charley. "But this is the best of all."
And from the behavior of Billy and his mother, Charley rather imagined that they agreed with him.
So it proved to be a merry Christmas at Gold Hill and the Golden West mine. And thus the famous year of Forty-nine passed into the busy prosperous year of Fifty, during which California and the Golden West mine grew and prospered together.