"Will you set us the example?" asked Harry, smiling.
"I'm not quite desperate enough yet. We'll try the claim a little longer. But I'm gettin' tuckered out. We'll go and get some dinner and then start diggin' again."
They repaired to their cabin, and solaced themselves with food. Then they threw themselves down in the shadow of the cabin to rest, and Obed pulled out his pipe. This was a solace which the boys didn't enjoy. They were sensible enough to know, that, whatever may be said of men, boys only receive injury from the use of tobacco. In the resolution to abstain, they were upheld and encouraged by Obed, who, veteran smoker as he was, did not approve of smoking.
"You're better off without it, boys," he said. "It won't do you no good. I wish I could leave it off."
"Why don't you?" asked Harry.
"Easier said than done, my boy. Let me see, I was only turned of thirteen when I used to slink off to the barn and smoke, for I knew father wouldn't let me if he knew it. It made me sick at first, but I thought it was makin' a man of me, and I kept on. Well, the habit's on me now, and it's hard to break. It don't hurt a man as much as a boy, but it don't do him any good, either. Jack, did you ever smoke?"
"No, Obed; but one of the sailors gave me a piece of tobacco to chew once. I didn't like it and spit it out."
"The best thing you could do. I wish all boys were as sensible."
In their hours of rest the three often chatted of home. Their conversation was generally of one tenor. They liked to fancy themselves returning with plenty of money, and planned how they would act under such pleasant circumstances. Instead of the barren hills among which they were encamped, familiar scenes and faces rose before them, and the picture was so attractive that it was hard to come back to the cheerless reality.
"Well, boys," said Obed, at the end of an hour, "we may as well go to work again. The gold's waitin' for us."