"Thank you," Tom said warmly; "I will follow your advice, which will be
easy enough. Beyond a glass of beer with my dinner and a tot of grog,
perhaps once in three months when I have gone on board a ship, and did
not like to say no, I have never touched it, and have no wish to do so."

"Stick to that, lad; stick to that. You will find many temptations, but
you set your face hard against them, and except when you come upon a
hard man bent on kicking up a muss, you will find folks will think none
the worse of you when you say to them straight, 'I am much obliged to
you all the same, but I never touch liquor.'"

Tom remained four days at the hotel, spending a good deal of his time at
the saloon, where he met many miners, all of whom endorsed what the
first he had spoken to had said respecting the country, and the
impossibility of anyone but an old hand among the mountains making his
way there.

On the fourth evening he said to Pete Hoskings: "I see that your advice
was good, and that it would be madness for me to attempt to go by
myself, but I don't see why I should not ride to Fort Bridger; not of
course by myself, but with one of the caravans going west. It would be a
great deal better for me to do that and to learn something of the plains
and camping than to stay here for perhaps three months. At Fort Bridger
I shall be able to learn more about the country, and might join some
hunting party and gain experience that way. I might find other
prospectors going up among the hills, and even if it were not near where
my uncle is to be found, I should gain by learning something, and should
not be quite a greenhorn when I join him."

"Well, that is sensible enough," Pete Hoskings said, "and I don't know