Higgins gets more than that out of it: he gets a clean eye and sound sleep and a living interest in life. He gets even more: he gets the trust and affection of almost–almost–every lumber-jack in the Minnesota woods. He wanders over two hundred square miles of forest, and hardly a man of the woods but would fight for his Christian reputation at a word. For example, he had pulled Whitey Mooney out of the filth and nervous strain of the snake-room, and reestablished him, had paid his board, had got him a job in a near-by town, had paid his fare, had taken him to his place; but Whitey Mooney had presently thrown up his job (being a lazy fellow), and had fallen into the depths again, had asked Higgins for a quarter of a dollar for a drink or two, and had been denied. Immediately he took to the woods; and in the camp he came to be complained that Higgins had “turned him down.”
“You’re a liar,” they told him. “The Pilot never turned a lumber-jack down. Wait till he comes.”
Higgins came.
“Pilot,” said a solemn jack, rising, when the sermon was over, as he had been delegated, “do you know Mooney?”
“Whitey Mooney?”
“Yes. Do you know Whitey Mooney?”
“You bet I do, boys!”
“Did–you–turn–him–down?”
“You bet I did, boys!”
“Why?”