In a Tight Box.
Those were wild times, and I had more than one unpleasant experience, among whites as well as Indians.
On my way to camp one evening, a party, composed of a big Indian and two women, all drunk, rushed out of the bush and seized me. I liberated myself from them by pushing one one way and the other another, smashed the whiskey bottle that the man held in his hand, and then ran as hard as I could.
On one occasion I was kindly invited to stay at a logging camp back of Oyster Bay. After supper I preached to the “boys,” and was listened to with respect and attention. When it came time to rest, they put me up in the top bunk in the bunk-house. And glad I was before morning that I was up aloft, for later on some of the boys came in the worse of liquor, passed around their bottles and had a most hilarious time. I don’t know how it commenced, but very soon a fight ensued; and, oh, how they did batter each other, while I lay in my blankets praying that God would, in some way, stop the quarrel. I did not get much rest that night, I assure you.
Next morning some of the poor fellows came and humbly apologized, and years afterwards one of them met me and asked if I recalled that night and its scene of turmoil and revelry.