idn't know how much surprised his aunt was--but he said
when he got inside the Forest Queen, into the bar-room where Charley's
faro layout usually was, he was so surprised himself he felt as if
he'd been kicked by a mule!

There was the little tables for drinks, right enough; and out of the
way in a corner with a cloth over it, same as usual, was the wheel.
(It was used so little, the wheel was--nobody but Mexicans, now and
then, caring for it--Santa Fe owned up afterwards he'd forgot it
clean!) That much of the place was just as it always was; and the big
table, taking up half the room, looked so natural--with the chairs up
to it, and layouts of chips at all the places--that Hart was beginning
to think Santa Fe was setting up a rig on him: 'till he seen what a
lot of queer things besides chips there was on the table--and knowed
they wasn't no game layout, and so sized 'em up to be what Charley'd
scrambled together when he set out to play his kindergarten hand. And
when he noticed the bar was curtained off by sheets he said he stopped
worrying--feeling dead certain Charley'd dealt himself all the aces he
needed to take him through.

"You don't need to be told, madam, being such an authority on
kindergartens," said Santa Fe, "how inadequate is our little outfit
for educational purposes. But you must remember that the fire
destroyed almost everything, and that we have merely improvised what
will serve our purposes until the new supply arrives. We succeeded in
saving from the conflagration our large table, and our chairs, and
most of the small tables--used by individual children having backward
intellects and needing especial care. But nearly all of the other
appliances of the school were lost to us, and damage was done to much
of what we saved. Here, you see, is a little table with only three
legs left, the fourth having been burned." And, sure enough, Hart
said, Santa Fe turned up one of the little tables for drinks and one
of its legs _was_ burnt off! "All of our slates," he went ahead,
"similarly were destroyed--and how much depends on slates in a
kindergarten you know, madam, better than I do. Here is all that is
left of one of them"--and he showed Hart's aunt a bit of burnt wood
that looked like it had been part of a slate-frame afore it got
afire.

"Dear me! Dear me!" said Hart's aunt. "It's just pitiful, Mr. Charles!
I wonder how you can get along at all."

"It is not easy getting along, madam," Santa Fe said.