The "New Lucy," from Fort Benton on the upper Missouri, was blowing off steam as they drove down to the levee. Younkins helped them unload their baggage, wrung their hands, one after another, with real tears in his eyes, for he had learned to love these hearty, happy lads, and then drove away with his cattle to pen them for the day and night that he should be there. Charlie and Oscar went to the warehouse of Osterhaus & Wickham, where they were to find the letter from home, the precious letter containing forty dollars to pay their expenses homeward. Sandy sat on the pile of trunks watching with great interest the novel sight of hurrying passengers, different from any people he ever saw before; black "roustabouts," or deck-hands, tumbling the cargo and the firewood on board, singing, shouting, and laughing the while, the white mates overseeing the work with many hard words, and the captain, tough and swarthy, superintending from the upper deck the mates and all hands. A party of nice-looking, citified people, as Sandy thought them, attracted his attention on the upper deck, and he mentally wondered what they could be doing here, so far in the wilderness. "Car' yer baggage aboard, boss?" asked a lively young negro, half-clad and hungry-looking. "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 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.