a saloon or stake a dollar in play."

"I agrees with you, Frank. Time has been when I have gone in for as
heavy sprees as any one. I don't think as I am likely to do it again,
but I am sure that an agreement like that would be a good thing for me
as well as the others. What do yer say, boys?"

"The only thing is," Peter suggested, "that we might, one or other, very
well get into a bad quarrel by refusing to drink when we are asked. You
see it's pretty nigh a deadly offence to refuse to drink with a man; and
if it got noticed that none of us ever went into a bar, there are men
here who would make a point of asking us to drink just for the sake of
making a quarrel if we refused."

"I allow there's something in that," Abe said; "there's no surer way of
getting into a mess among a set of men like this than in refusing to
drink."

"Well, if that's the case," Frank said, "we must modify the arrangement,
and agree that none of us will go into a bar unless actually asked to go
and take a drink--that wouldn't be very often, the invitation is
generally given inside. We come back from work about the same time that
every one else knocks off, and they are not thinking of going to the
bars till they have had a meal, and when we are once quietly seated
round the fire here no one is very likely to ask any of us to get up and
go off to one of the saloons."

The suggestion was adopted, and all bound themselves not to enter a
saloon to drink or gamble unless invited to take a drink under
circumstances in which a refusal would be taken in bad part.

"I am mighty glad you proposed that," Abe said, afterwards. "Rube is all
right, but Peter and Dick are both of 'em fond of going on a spree now
and then, and this may keep them from it. I told 'em when we started
that I was ready to go partners as long as they kept from drink, but I
wasn't going to tie myself up with any one as was going in for that.
When we dissolves partnership each one will have a right to do with his
share what he likes; he can gamble it away, or drink it away, or fool it
away as he chooses, but no man as drinks overnight will do his fair
share of work next day. Besides, luck may at any time go agin us, and we
may have to fall back on what we have laid by when times were good; and
if any one had been and spent his share he couldn't be looking to the
others to support him. Besides, as I pinted out, we might want all the
money we has got atween us to buy up a claim in a