Maggie followed her mother's example and put a sign of "Table Board" in
the window. They lived in this way for ten years, and in spite of the
dismal prognostications of friends, John Corbett worked industriously,
and did not show any desire to return to his old ways! When he said he
would do what Maggie told him it was not the rash promise of an eager
lover, for Mr. Corbett was never rash, and the subsequent years showed
that his purpose was honest to fulfil it to the letter.

Maggie, being many years his junior, could not think of addressing him
by his first name, and she felt that it was not seemly to use the
prefix, so again she followed her mother's example, and addressed him
as her mother did Murphy, senior, as "Da."

It was in the early eighties that Maggie and John Corbett decided to
come farther west. The cry of free land for the asking was coming to
many ears, and at Maggie's table it was daily discussed. They sold out
the contents of their house, and, purchasing oxen and a covered wagon,
they made the long overland journey. On the bank of Black Creek they
pitched their tent, and before a week had gone by Maggie Corbett was
giving meals to hungry men, cooking bannocks, frying pork, and making
coffee on her little sheet-iron camp-stove, no bigger than a biscuit-
box.

The next year, when the railroad came to Brandon, and the wheat was
drawn in from as far south as Lloyd's Lake, the Black Creek Stopping-
House became a far-famed and popular establishment.


CHAPTER II.