“You won’t mind, will you,” said he, “if I hold a little service for the boys in the bunk-house to-night?”
The boss ordered him to clear out.
“All I want to do,” Higgins protested, mildly, “is just to hold a little service for the boys.”
Again the boss ordered him to clear out: but Higgins had come prepared with the authority of the proprietor of the camp.
“I’ve a pass in my pocket,” he suggested.
“Don’t matter,” said the boss; “you couldn’t preach in this camp if you had a pass from God Almighty!”
To thrash or not to thrash? that was the Pilot’s problem; and he determined not to thrash, for he knew very well that if he thrashed the boss the lumber-jacks would lose respect for the boss and jump the camp. The Blacksmith, however, had heard–and had heard much more than is here written. Next morning he involved himself in a quarrel with the boss; and having thrashed him soundly, and having thrown him into a snowbank, he departed, but returned, and, addressing himself to that portion of the foreman which protruded from the snow, kicked it heartily, saying: “There’s one for the Pilot. And there’s another–and another. I’ll learn you to talk to the Pilot like a drunken lumber-jack. There’s another for him. Take that–and that–for the Pilot.”
Subsequently Higgins preached in those camps.