“Yes; yours is a more permanent job than mine. I’m through.”
“Just tell your father and mother where I am,” said Grant. “I hear I’m to sleep in the restaurant.”
“That’ll save the expense of a bed. How long do you think you’ll keep at it, Grant?”
“A month, perhaps, if I suit well enough. By that time I’ll have money enough to go to the mines.”
“Then you haven’t given that up?”
“No; I came out to California to dig gold, and I shan’t be satisfied till I get at it.”
When meal hours were over that afternoon Grant started out for a stroll through the town. As he was passing the Morning Star saloon a rough, bearded fellow, already under the influence of liquor, seized him by the arm.
“Come in, boy, and have a drink,” he said.
Grant shrank from him with a repugnance he could not conceal.
“No, thank you!” he answered. “I don’t drink.”