--{ TO CARIBOO AND BACK }e-—

up her scissors and trimmed the smoky lamp.
They were all once more earnestly studying the
map they had brought with them when Pro-
fessor Allen came into the room.

The professor was a gentleman who had
travelled all the way from Toronto like them-
selves. In fact he was an old acquaintance,
for Mary had washed for his widowed sister for
a number of years. He came in to give them
the bad news he had just heard.

“Mrs. Mulligan,” he said, “I’ve something
unpleasant to impart—a bit of bad news in fact.
It seems all that advertising in the papers we
saw was a hoax. There’s no stage route to the
Fraser. After Fort Garry, if we get that far,
it’s all unbroken country given over to Indians
and fur traders. There’s not so much as a
trail to the Cariboo, for we'll be the first
people to get there by land, if ever we do!”

“Oh, the wicked frauds!” Mary Mulligan
straightened her tiny figure and her big round
gray eyes blazed. “They ought to be jailed,
ivery wan of them! It’s lucky for us we paid
out nothing at all, and so we’re not the great
losers that some are.”

This was the truth. Mary, with her good

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