"Tell the boys that in this hour Jesus Christ brought his strong salvation to me," said a dying man. "Ask them to trust him."
When the missionary goes back to the camp with such a message from the dead the interest is profound. Coming from one of themselves it seems more real than if it were the message of the preacher. When the testimony comes from their own mates they are more receptive to the gentle Gospel of the Cross. Often in death a lumberjack, by his message to the foresters, has accomplished more than in his years of life.
While speaking of this itinerating work we must add a paragraph concerning the homesteaders. In this forest region is much land that is open to settlement. The little cabins of the homesteaders, who have taken up claims, are seen in many parts of the forest, and the small clearings tell of man's presence. When the settlers hear that Rev. Frank E. Higgins is to hold services in a neighboring camp they are often found at the bunkhouse meetings. Mr. Higgins is practically the only pastor who visits the scattered peasantry; he conducts their marriage ceremonies, baptizes their children and speaks the last words over their dead. Into these homes he alone comes bearing spiritual tidings. Some of these homesteaders work their farms in summer and in the winter help out the scanty increase of the little fields by working in the logging camps. So in passing the new homes he leaves the literature, "speaks a good word for Jesus Christ," adds a sentence of comfort and passes along the trail,—like a true servant of him who was gladly received by the common people because he went about doing good. "Go ye into the highways and hedges," said the Nazarene.
[CHAPTER VII.]
WORK IN THE LUMBER TOWNS.
In the camps the missionary is largely a preacher; in the lumber towns the work he must do is cut to no design or pattern. One might call it pastoral work, and in a free use of the term it is, but I know of no pastor who is doing work of this nature unless it be the men in the city missions. It is work which consists largely of the unexpected—changing a chance circumstance into Christian activity.
The villages and towns have followed the railways, bringing in the many alluring vices of civilization. Through the approaches of vice the campmen have been demoralized, their lives made almost worthless, and their characters seared with the brand of iniquity. The contractors find it a task to obtain suitable men for their crews, for the saloon and its concomitant evils have made many of the lumberjacks irresponsible and incapable. The men will leave their work on the least provocation to spend a few days in debauchery. Often a contractor finds himself, in the parlance of the camps, "with one crew coming to camp, another working, and another leaving camp." This means loss on the part of the men and inability on the part of the contractor to deliver his contract of logs. As one contractor expressed it: "The jacks work until their hides begin to crack, then follow their tongues to the nearest irrigation plant, tank up until the stake is blown, then mosey to a camp to dry out again." The village and town saloons are largely the cause of this. The rum shops, and worse, are ever on the lookout for the boys, and he who escapes the clutches of the godless crowd must indeed be immune to temptation.
Mr. Higgins was in a hotel in Tenstrike, Minnesota, when a lumberjack who had finished his winter's work came into the house to wait for the train going south. Immediately the saloon men and gamblers were after him but he resisted and left the village with his check uncashed. The gamblers learned that he was going to Bemidji so they wired to the gamblers of that place to meet him. When the woodsman left the train he was hailed by a waiting "toot." The "toot" was genial, gracious, sympathetic, and to cement the friendship, the one must treat and the other do likewise. While they drank the attendant at the wheel made music with the roulette ball and soon in response to the siren's singing the lumberjack was seated at the wheel where he lost in a few hours the wages it had taken him months to earn. When he left the place he was drunken, penniless, forsaken.
The writer and Frank Higgins were going through a gambling den in one of the northern towns. At the roulette wheel sat a young traveling man playing his chips with liberal hand. Merrily the ivory rattled in the groove and settled in the space. Now he lost, now he won. Joy or anguish was on his face as he played to increase his winnings or retrieve his losses. It was interesting to watch the play of the man's passions as expressed in his countenance. Hour after hour the game dragged on. We visited other resorts of the lumberjack and returned at midnight, but the traveling man was still at the wheel. Hope still lingered, but from the haggard, drawn expression of his face we could tell that he had lost heavily. It was 1:30 A. M., when the game ended and the man was without a cent. Mr. Higgins spoke to him in the lobby of the hotel. Despair was depicted on the man's face. Worn with anxiety, he staggered like one under the power of liquor, although not a drop had passed his lips, and the wild look of his eyes suggested the haunted mien of one who might attempt his own life.