"They do?" cried Ted.
"Of course! They do the cooking where there aren't any Chinamen. Mostly Chinamen do the cooking in gold camps, but we haven't any, so we'll have to have a girl. She can be Jan."
"There's a Chinaman who washes shirts and collars in our town," remarked Ted. "Maybe we could get him to cook for us."
"No! What's the use when we've got Jan? Anyhow it'll be only make- believe cooking, and I don't guess that shirt-Chinaman would want to come here just for that. Anyhow we'd have to pay him and we haven't any money."
"We'll get some out of the gold mine," Ted answered.
"Well, maybe we won't find any gold for a week or so."
"Does it take as long as that?"
"Oh, yes. Sometimes longer. And that Chinaman would want to be paid for his cooking every week, or every night maybe. We won't have to pay Jan."
"That's so. Well, then I guess she can come. But we can get my mother or Nora to make us sandwiches and we won't have to cook much of anything."
"That's what I thought, Teddy. But we can let Jan set the table and things like that when she isn't digging. She'll help a lot."