“No, not yet,” answered Sandy, feeling in his trousers pocket the last two quarters of a dollar that was left them. “Not yet. I am not ready to go aboard till my mates come.” The hungry-looking darky made a rush for another more promising passenger and left Sandy lounging where the other 210 lads soon after found him. Charlie’s face was a picture of despair. Oscar looked very grave, for him.
“What’s up?” cried Sandy, starting from his seat. “Have you seen a ghost?”
“Worse than that,” said Charlie. “Somebody’s stolen the money!”
“Stolen the money?” echoed Sandy, with vague terror, the whole extent of the catastrophe flitting before his mind. “Why, what on earth do you mean?”
Oscar explained that they had found the letter, as they expected, and he produced it, written by the two loving mothers at home. They said that they had made up their minds to send fifty dollars, instead of the forty that Uncle Charlie had said would be enough. It was in ten-dollar notes, five of them; at least, it had been so when the letter left Dixon. When it was opened in Leavenworth, it was empty, save for the love and tenderness that were in it. Sandy groaned.
The lively young darky came up again with, “Car’ yer baggage aboard, boss?”
It was sickening.
“What’s to be done now?” said Charlie, in deepest dejection, as he sat on the pile of baggage that now looked so useless and needless. “I just believe some of the scamps I saw loafing around there in that store stole the money out of the letter. See here; it was sealed with that confounded 211 new-fangled ‘mucilage’; gumstickum I call it. Anybody could feel those five bank-notes inside of the letter, and anybody could steam it open, take out the money, and seal it up again. We have been robbed.”
“Let’s go and see the heads of the house there at Osterhaus & Wickham’s. They will see us righted,” cried Sandy, indignantly. “I won’t stand it, for one.”
“No use,” groaned Charlie. “We saw Mr. Osterhaus. He was very sorry––oh, yes!––awfully sorry; but he didn’t know us, and he had no responsibility for the letters that came to his place. It was only an accommodation to people that he took them in his care, anyhow. Oh, it’s no use talking! Here we are, stranded in a strange place, knowing no living soul in the whole town but good old Younkins, and nobody knows where he is. He couldn’t lend us the money, even if we were mean enough to ask him. Good old Younkins!”