“Can’t help it,” said he. “That’s where my stake ’ll go. Jake Boore ’ll get the most of it; and among the lot of them they’ll get every cent. I’ll blow four hundred dollars in two weeks–if I’m lucky enough to make it go that far.”
“When you know that they rob you?”
“Certainly they will rob me; everybody knows that! But every year for nine years, now, I’ve tried to get out of the woods with my stake, and haven’t done it. I intend to this year; but I know I won’t. I’ll strike for Deer River when I get my money; and I’ll have a drink at Jake Boore’s saloon, and when I get that drink down I’ll be on my way. It isn’t because I want to; it’s because I have to.”
“But why?”
“They won’t let you do anything else,” said the cook. “I’ve tried it for nine years. Every winter I’ve said to myself that I’ll get out of the woods in the spring, and every spring I’ve been kicked out of a saloon dead broke. It’s always been back to the tall timber for me.”
“What you need, Jones,” said Higgins, who stood by, “is the grace of God in your heart.”
Jones laughed.
“You hear me, Jones?” the Pilot repeated. “What you need is the grace of God in your heart.”
“The Pilot’s mad,” the cook laughed, but not unkindly. “The Pilot and I don’t agree about religion,” he explained; “and now he’s mad because I won’t go to church.”
This banter did not disturb the Pilot in the least.