~{ To CARIBOO AND BACK }x--

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
DIGGINGS

While the boys had been away on their hunt,
Mary Mulligan had had a confidential talk with
her new employer. Betty was left sitting on
a stool in the lean-to kitchen. The child was
picking over beans, a task that was never ended
at Hunkydory’s, because no sooner was one lot
of beans in the pot and baking, than another
had to be got ready to follow it ; and so the
pots passed into the oven and out in an endless
procession all day long.

Mary had not talked much about the reason
for her mad journey across the continent,
except to the professor, who had aided and
abetted her in the undertaking. But she never
forgot that she had come to look for Betty’s
father. Now it seemed that they were safely
settled in this Quesnel hotel, if such a name
could be given to the long shanty that consisted
of dining room, saloon and bunk house, with the
kitchen and a couple of cubbyhole rooms off It;

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