For a week after Julian and Jack went to their new boarding-house they had much to occupy their attention—so much, indeed, they did not think of going down to the telegraph office and "swapping a few lies" with the chief operator. Their new home charmed them in every particular. Mr. Fay had not forgotten that he had been a boy in the not so very long ago, and the boarding-house he had chosen for them was such as he would have chosen for himself. The boarders were young men who, like themselves, had come out West to seek their fortunes, and they were all employed in various avocations in the city. Jack noticed one thing, and that was they did not run around of evenings to any extent; or, if they did, they went down to the library, where they spent their time in reading.
"Do you know that that is something that strikes me," said Jack one night when they went upstairs to their room. "We ought to join the Young Men's Christian Association."
"Have you forgotten our mine?" asked Julian.
"No, I have not; but I don't believe in going up there in winter. A thermometer that can change so many times within twenty-four hours is something that I want to keep clear of."
"Well, where is the money to come from?"
"Humph!" said Jack, who had not thought of that before; "that's so. Where is it?"
The first thing the boys thought of, when they got up the next morning, was to take a trip to the mountains. Jack was in favor of walking. It was only twelve miles, and the amount they would have to pay out for a horse would keep one of them a week at their boarding-house. But Julian could not see it in that light.
"I tell you, you have never walked twenty-four miles in a day," remarked the latter. "I have done it many a time, but I am not going to do it now, when there is no need of it."
"You act as though you had that money in your hands already," retorted Jack. "Now, I'll tell you what's a fact: I am going to have the same trouble with you that I had in St. Louis. There won't be any 'old horse' for you to spend your money on, but you will squander it in some other way."
"You will see," said Julian, with a laugh. "Come on, now; I am going to get a saddle-horse—one that can take me out there in an hour."