“I want t’ tell ye, friend,” the lumber-jack added, with honest reverence, “that he’s a damned good Christian, if ever there was one. Ain’t that right, Billy?”
“Higgins,” the bartender agreed, “is a square man.”
The lumber-jack reverted to the previous interest. All at once he forgot about the Pilot.
“Hey, Billy!” he cried, severely, “where’d ye put that bottle?”
Higgins was then in the snake-room of the place–a foul compartment into which the stupefied and delirious are thrown when they are penniless–searching the pockets of the drunken boy from Toronto for some leavings of his wages. “Not a cent!” said he, bitterly. “They haven’t left him a cent! They’ve got every penny of three months’ wages! Don’t blame the boy,” he pursued, in pain and infinite sympathy, easing the lad’s head on the floor; “it isn’t all his fault. He came out of the camps without telling me–and some cursed tin-horn gambler met him, I suppose–and he’s only a boy–and they didn’t give him a show–and, oh, the pity of it! he’s been here only two days!”
The boy was in a stupor of intoxication, but presently revived a little, and turned very sick.
“That you, Pilot?” he said.
“Yes, Jimmie.”
“A’ right.”
“Feel a bit better now?”