l or fence about eight feet high. Evidently Miggles's, and
evidently Miggles did not keep a hotel.

The driver got down and tried the gate. It was securely locked. "Miggles!
O Miggles!"

No answer.

"Migg-ells! You Miggles!" continued the driver, with rising wrath.

"Migglesy!" joined the expressman, persuasively. "O Miggy! Mig!"

But no reply came from the apparently insensate Miggles. The Judge,
who had finally got the window down, put his head out and propounded
a series of questions, which if answered categorically would have
undoubtedly elucidated the whole mystery, but which the driver evaded by
replying that "if we didn't want to sit in the coach all night, we had
better rise up and sing out for Miggles."

So we rose up and called on Miggles in chorus; then separately. And when
we had finished, a Hibernian fellow-passenger from the roof called for
"Maygells!" whereat we all laughed. While we were laughing, the driver
cried "Shoo!"

We listened. To our infinite amazement the chorus of "Miggles" was
repeated from the other side of the wall, even to the final and
supplemental "Maygells."

"Extraordinary echo," said the Judge.

"Extraordinary damned skunk!" roared the driver, contemptuously. "Come
out of that, Miggles, and show yourself! Be a man, Miggles! Don't hide
in the dark; I wouldn't if I were you, Miggles," continued Yuba Bill,
now dancing about in an excess of fury.

"Miggles!" continued the voice. "O Miggles!"

"My good man! Mr. Myghail!" said the Judge, softening the asperities of
the name as much as possible. "Consider the inhospitality of refusing
shelter from the inclemency of the weather to helpless females. Really,
my dear sir--" But a succession of "Miggles," ending in a burst of
laughter, drowned his voice.

Yuba Bill hesitated no longer. Taking a heavy stone from the road, he
battered down the gate, and with the expressman entered the enclosure.
We followed. Nobody was to be seen. In the gathering darkness all that
we could distinguish was that we were in a garden--from the rosebushes
that scattered over us a minute spray from their dripping leaves--and
before a long, rambling wooden building.

"Do you know this Miggles?" asked the Judge of Yuba Bill.

"No, nor, don't want to," said Bill, shortly, who felt the Pioneer Stage
Company insulted in his person by the contumacious Miggles.

"But, my dear sir," expostulated the Judge as he thought of the barred
gate.

"Lookee here," sa