Transcriber's note: Table of Contents added by Transcriber.

[CONTENTS]

THE LUMBERJACK SKY PILOT AND HIS TEAM, FLASH AND SPARK

THE
LUMBERJACK
SKY PILOT

BY
THOMAS D. WHITTLES

CHICAGO
THE WINONA PUBLISHING COMPANY
1908

COPYRIGHT,
1908
The Winona Publishing Company

[FOREWORD]

The intent of this little volume is not to glorify a man, but to present the parish of the pines. Imagination has little part in its pages, for the incidents are actual happenings and the descriptions are taken from life. The condition of the foresters is really the theme, although the title draws attention to the missionary. Because the Rev. Frank E. Higgins has given himself devotedly to the men of forest and river, I have chosen his experiences as hooks on which to hang the pictures of pinery life. Mr. Higgins has labored with no thought of fame, but with devotion to God and man; and so I write not to exalt the missionary, but to introduce you to his interesting parishioners.

I have written with love because I know the Sky Pilot. I have written with prayerful longing because I know the lumberjacks. If through my unskilled effort you become interested in the isolated, wayward woodsmen, I shall be fully repaid.

March, 1908.

T. D. W.

"Men who plow the sea, spend they may—and free,
But nowhere is there prodigal among those careless Jacks
Who will toss the hard won spoil of a year of lusty toil
Like the Prodigals of Pickpole and the Ishmaels of the Ax."

—Holman Day.

[INTRODUCTION]

BY THE

REV. JOHN E. BUSHNELL, D. D.

It has long been felt by those familiar with the human side of the forest life that its call should be heard, and that the efforts of devoted hearts to minister to the peculiar needs of the men behind the axe and the saw should be made known. This volume is a timely response to that desire. Through a veritable forest of material the author safely arrives with us at the camp-fire and heart-fire of the lumberjack. Most writers must create their own heroes; ours found his awaiting him, for God created Frank E. Higgins, the hero of this book. It is just like God to make such a man when there is such a work to be done. It shows us how busy Providence is in human affairs. The least we can do in return is to know that man and get his message.

The dumb creatures of the wood have just now almost a superfluity of exponents and disciples. The humanity of the woods is just beginning to have its champions.

The Lure of the Wild has long prevailed to call men forth to kill, or prospect, or sin, but in a lovelier guise it will possess the readers of this book to make them enter the Wild to pity, love, and save. To most of them this narrative will come as a surprise. It may even raise the question of possible exaggeration as to the extent of human suffering and degradation involved in the simple task of felling the forests to meet the needs of a growing nation. To those, however, who have been over the trail, it will appeal as a moderate but faithful picture of scenes of intensest pathos and tragedy which are but commonplace in the parish of the Sky Pilot to the Lumberjacks.

The fierceness with which evil hunts its human prey, and makes strong men of our own day and nation no better than the old galley-slave, toiling to enrich their brutal masters, can be only partially set forth in the limits of these pages. We shall all be made better neighbors to our homeless brothers in the wilderness by following Mr. Whittles' surprising and fascinating story and by walking in the footsteps of the modest missionary of the Cross, of whom he writes, on his round of mercy through camp and brush, for whose zeal the winter's blast is never too severe, and whose love for souls melts a pathway through drifted snow. We shall be reminded afresh of how rough is the work and how great the human sacrifice by which the wants of civilization are satisfied. We shall also be moved to resolve that the amount of the vicarious suffering of men for this end shall be reduced of all that portion of it that comes through our indifference and the activity of evil. This narrative adds a unique and valuable chapter to the records of our country. It will be read with gratitude by every one, who for whatever cause seeks wider knowledge of his fellowmen. Most of all will it appeal to the Christian hearts of our land to whom these men of the woods will seem as brothers, having more than their share of life's hardships and temptations and less than their share of its privilege and its opportunity.

It is most earnestly to be hoped that it may reach all the homes of our land and cause them to rest a while from the fiction of the hour, that, in the glow of these human realities, stranger than the inventions of fancy, we may learn henceforth to suffer in the afflictions of our exceptional members and relieve the conditions which make them helpless without our aid.

THIS
LITTLE BOOK
I LOVINGLY DEDICATE
TO SARAH.
MY WIFE.

[CHAPTER I.]
THE LUMBERJACKS AND THE LUMBERJACK SKY PILOT.

While I waited for a train, a woodsman entered the station. He was dressed in a rough Mackinaw jacket; coarse socks held his trousers close to his legs, and on his hands were heavy woolen mittens. Everything proclaimed him to be a man of the camps.

"Hello, Jack," I said in greeting, "how were the woods this winter? Anything new in the camps?"

Jack jammed the Peerless into his strong-smelling pipe, struck a match and replied: "Snowed so blank hard that half the gang jumped the job, and us fools that stayed worked up to our necks trying to get out the stuff. This winter was Hades, but not quite so warm—no, not by a jugfull. Why say, neighbor, in our camp the whisky froze up and kept the bunch sober until we got a new supply."

He paused, looked me over, and began again:

"You're a preacher, ain't you?"

"I am," I replied.

"Well, then, here's news you'll enjoy. We're all thinking of joining the church—us fellows in the camps. Funny, ain't it? The gospel sharks are in the tall timber and are getting bags of game that would shame a pot hunter. The cloth has donned overalls and is preaching at us. Savvy, Preacher?—we've actually got so civilized that they're preaching at us God-forsaken lumberjacks. How does that strike you for news?"

He paused to see the effect this intelligence was having on me, then continued:

"The sermons we get are the real thing. No sun-proof paint on them, no 'by-your-leave,' but the straight goods, the pure stuff—chips, bark and timber. Everything we get is government sealed, punk proof, top-loaded and headed for the landing—which is us. It all comes our way and we hold our noses and take the medicine. What party do you happen to hitch to?"

"Denomination?" I asked, "I am a Presbyterian."

"Good! So am I. I don't happen to belong yet, but if they keep on hewing to the line, I'll have to join—or hike. Our Sky Pilot, Frank Higgins, belongs to your crowd. Probably you know him?"

"I have known him a long time," I replied.

"Shake! If you're a friend of his you'll do. He's onto his job, and if this keeps up, the guy that splashes ink on the church roll will be kept busy adding our names. There's my train."

He was gone. May the day soon come when the half jesting prophecy of the lumberjack will be fulfilled.

*****

Stately and green is the forest of the North Star State. From Lake Superior the great pineries of Minnesota extend unbroken until the fertile silt of the Red River Valley limits the growth of the pines. Two hundred miles is the width of the forest and the evergreen covers the northern half of the state. This is "the woods" of Minnesota—the center of the logging industry.

About five hundred camps mar this beautiful region with their rude shacks and temporary shelters, some of them being scores of miles from the permanent settlements. During the winter months twenty thousand men labor in the scattered camps of this vast territory, removing the growth of ages that the farms and cities may have comfort and protection. The primeval forest has been invaded, and on the zero air of the north the ring of the ax, the tearing of saws and the strange oaths of the teamsters mingle with the crash of falling trees.

The workers of the forest are called lumberjacks. In all the country there is scarcely a more interesting group of men—interesting because so wayward and prodigal in life and habit, while their forest home appeals to every leaf-loving soul. They are the nomads of the west—farm hands and railroad constructionists in summer, woodsmen in winter—with no settled abode, no place they call home. A few years ago Michigan claimed them; later their habitat was in the forests of Wisconsin; now the woods of Minnesota is their rendezvous.

LUMBER CAMP IN THE LONG, LACE-LIKE NORWAYS

The typical lumberjack is a man of large heart and little will. He sins with willing freedom, because he has almost lost the power to check his evil desires, and it is so easy to yield to the vultures who make sin convenient and righteousness hard. The saloon and brothel are ever alluringly near, while the church and bethel are slow to approach. The harpies of sin wait at every turn to prey upon the woodsman—though they damn his soul it matters not, if they obtain the cash.

The railroads push their iron arms into the heart of the wooded lands, and the villages follow the railways, desiring to be near the camps for the trade they bring. Almost without exception the first places of business are the saloons, to which are attached the outfits of the gamblers, and conveniently near are the places of shame. One new town in the pineries had between forty and fifty saloons (forty-six I believe is the number), five large brothels, and the gambling hells were many, yet the population of the place was little over two thousand. It was evident to the casual visitor that its chief industry was to separate the campmen from their earnings by preying on their weaknesses. Another village is beautifully situated at the junction of two rivers. All around it is well timbered land, and from the nature of the soil the place is destined to be of importance in the coming years, but at the time of this writing the village with its adjacent territory only contains a population of about two hundred. The village has less than a dozen houses, but six saloons do a thriving business and the brothel has appeared. You ask where the places obtain their patronage? From the camps. The foresters are the source of profit; the population of the town would not be able to keep one saloon in business. Nor are these solitary instances. The same conditions are to be found in almost every hamlet and village in the woods. Day and night they ply their sinful trade, and soon the gold, which the lumberjack risked his life to win, jingles in the coffers of the shameless or gleams in the till of the saloon or gambling hell.

Sunday is the harvest day of iniquity. The men are released from labor and pour into the villages to spend the hours of rest. The wheel, whisky and women separate them from their earnings, and like the withered leaves of autumn the strong wielders of the ax and canthook fall easy victims. One night "to blow in the stake," regrets for a moment—then back to the loneliness of the winter woods again. He is said to be a poor lumberjack who can keep his wages over night.

Jack is not always a willing victim. Often by knockout drops he is reduced to insensibility and robbed. He may complain of the treatment, but he is helpless through lack of evidence, and is told to "go up river," or is hustled unfeelingly out of town. "He's only a lumberjack and is better off when all in." This is all the sympathy the Ishmaelite receives. No place is open to him except the one he should avoid. The churches are too weak to meet the large demands, and so no place of refuge opens its doors of hope to the prodigal. The balm of sympathy comes to him limitedly; humanity is as cold as the frozen streams of his winter's retreat. Civilization is viewed only as a place of unbridled license where the law favors the spoiler. God is dead. Christ is only a word of convenient profanity. The church has forgotten the prodigal while caring for the souls of the saved. Thus he views life. In his wretchedness he labors for the keepers of the gates of death and is satisfied, if, by the sweat of his brow, he can win an hour of forgetfulness in the place of riot and shame.

No picture was ever painted so dark as to exclude all light. God made it so. Even in the neglected sons of the lumber-camps is seen a hopeful ray—for their hearts are as rich in charity as their lives are dark with sin. Their sympathies can easily be touched. It is through the open freedom of their generous nature that the reforming power of the gospel can enter. The only remedy for the campmen is the sustaining power of the Man of Nazareth. When they shall learn to know the Christ of God as the Savior of men, the darkened lives of the foresters will be transformed, and the fruits they shall bring forth will be the wished for deeds of righteousness.

When the Rev. Francis Edmund Higgins, the Lumberjack Sky Pilot, began his work among these neglected Ishmaelites, no religious society was making an effort to raise the moral and spiritual condition of the campmen. The Catholic church, then as now, devoted itself to the hospital work in the nearby towns, but no denomination invaded the camps to lead the bunkmen to right living. At the time of this writing the Presbyterian church is the only religious organization having special missionaries in the lumbercamps.

Regardless of denominational prejudice, the work of Frank Higgins appeals to the whole Christian church, not only on account of its peculiar type, but also because of the interesting man conducting it. Fitted by nature and training for his work, he is striving with heart and hand in a large and lonely field. He is the pastor of a large and scattered flock which for long and weary years has known no shepherd. Depraved men are being reached, lifted and kept for God through him—men alone are his parishioners.

Seldom is a pastor more beloved by his people. The rough but kindly hearts of the lumberjacks go out to this fearless minister who self-sacrificingly breaks the bread of life to the husk-fed prodigals of the far north country. The lumberjacks will fight for their Sky Pilot; and even the ranks of the enemy—the saloonmen, the gamblers, the brothel keepers—are compelled to admire this earnest Christian minister who is valiantly fighting a hard battle for God and righteousness.

The Rev. Frank Higgins is a resolute character, full of zeal and undaunted courage. God gave him a strong body and he is using it for the Giver. That rare virtue we call tact, or sanctified common sense, shows itself in all his dealings with men. False dignity is absent from him, but the dignity of sterling purpose and determined endeavor is ever present. He is no slave to custom, but is a man who does things in his own way, and does them well. The title the loggers have conferred upon him is one of affection; he is the Lumberjack Sky Pilot, and if you heard his forest parishioners speak that name, you would realize that his ordination was threefold—ordained of God, by the presbytery and by the lumberjacks.

Frank E. Higgins was born in the Queen City of the West, Toronto, Ontario, on the nineteenth day of August, 1865. He was the seventh child to come into the home, but the only one to survive the vicissitudes of infancy. His parents were both Irish, but his father, Samuel Higgins, was born in the Dominion, and for some years prior to his death kept a hotel in Toronto on the site where the Walker House now stands. In this house Frank was born. Ann Higgins, the mother, first saw the sun in the Ulster settlement of Ireland, her parents bringing her to Canada when she was four years old. Samuel Higgins died when Frank was seven years of age.

Two years after the death of Frank's father, Ann Higgins married John Castle, an Englishman, who shortly afterwards moved the family to Shelburne, Dufferin County, Ontario. Here in the untouched wilderness the settlers began to force an opening for cabin and crops. The country was new. Few white families were near, but on the Higgins homestead were several camps of Sioux Indians. The land was forest covered, the towering cedar and hemlock stretched their graceful fingers heavenward, the spreading maples delighted the eye, and the white robes of the slender birch lent variety to the sylvan scene. With painful effort the sentinels were felled and squared for cabin and sheds, and fields of grain succeeded the fallen forest.

The companions of Frank Higgins were the children of the Sioux Indians, whose tepees were near the homestead. With the children of the Indians he took his lessons in woodcraft, learned to draw the bow, or childishly labored at the tasks of the growing braves. One of his early recollections is of secretly carrying a loaf of bread from his home to trade with an Indian youth for bow and arrows. Perhaps the subsequent strapping he received had something to do with the permanency and vividness of the recollection. For three years the Indians were his constant playmates. From the warlike Sioux, fearlessness was imbibed, their love of the forest became his, and an ineffaceable delight in tree and stream was stamped in the character of the growing boy. "I feel it now," he said to me, but recently when we were in the city together, "I want to get back to the solitudes where the trees have voices and every stream a story. I love the camps rather than the cities. I have never passed from my boyhood love—my first love—the trees, the hills, the brooks. In the pineries I feel as if I were a boy back in the old days again."

STEAM-JAMMER AT WORK

These were days of gold and purple when the child was learning the mysteries of life, days of ceaseless roaming in which nature taught her truths through leaf and twig, through dew and whispering breeze. He was nature taught—all that touches "the wild and pillared shades" belongs to his free, frank nature. Unknowingly he was beholding the beauty of his future kingdom and unconsciously equipping himself for the years of zealous toil among the white nomads whose weapons are the ax, the saw and the peavey—a change in equipment and complexion, with the same stage setting.

Few school privileges came to the forest lad. When he should have been at his studies there was no school to attend; when the school came, only brief periods were allowed to him. At twelve he took his place by his stepfather's side and assisted in supporting the family. Every hand was needed, and the boy's little counted for much. There was ground to clear of trees and underbrush, there were rails to split and fields to fence, and in the winter logging, claimed his labor for the cash it gave in return.

Dufferin County could offer few advantages in those days. Its sparsely settled condition meant absence of amusements and communal privileges. Most of the new settlers were of English blood, and while they were willing to stint and sacrifice, yet they demanded the presence of the church. A church was organized near the Castle home, to which John and Ann Castle gave their united support. Frank's stepfather was a godly man, in whose life was reflected the spirit of our Master's teaching. Service and fellowship were the watchwords of the home. Of material wealth the cabin could not boast, but in spiritual gifts its occupants were far from poor. It was largely through these examples of Christian living that Frank Higgins acquired a knowledge and interest in the things of God.

When Frank was eighteen years old a wave of religious awakening swept through the community, and the stepson of John Castle was one of the first to surrender to the Master. Immediately he interested himself in the welfare of his companions, doing personal work among them. The result was that most of his companions joined the company of believers. These young men then organized a semi-weekly prayer meeting in the schoolhouse and Frank Higgins led the first meeting. Nine of those who attended those prayer meetings have since gone forth to preach the everlasting Gospel. There must have been good stuff among the settlers of Dufferin County.

The ministry always had its charms for Frank Higgins. Long before he united with the church, the desire to preach had possessed him. Many were the sermons he delivered to the cattle, stumps and trees, while going the rounds of his daily labor. On one occasion the stepfather and hired man hid behind the stumps that they might receive edification from the discourses that so often wasted their sweetness on the desert air. Unaware of their presence, Frank worked a while, then, laying aside his ax, mounted a log and began his sermon to the stumps. Vigorously he chided them for their inactivity. Emphatic were the woes he pronounced upon them who were at ease, while the harvest called loudly for workers. Enthusiastically he bade the stumps march forward and with unsheathed sword take possession of the Promised Land. The hidden ones, suppressing mirth that almost injured them, silently thrust their heads above the hiding place and looked with forced solemnity at the big, lonely preacher. So unexpected was their appearance, that he, who a moment before was willing to lead an army of stumps to victory, retreated to the cover of the forest, pursued by the convulsing laughter of his friends. Years afterwards, when commenting on the above incident, he said: "You see, it was a sermon to men after all. I had intended it for stumps, but it produced action among men." He laughed.

Men have always been his auditors. From the time of his stump sermon they have listened to his story of the Cross, and today among the stumps of the pineries he preaches with results that cause the angels to laugh in gladness.

At the age of twenty Frank Higgins returned to Toronto, the city of his birth, where he resided with relatives. He there entered the public schools, taking up the studies which the conditions in Dufferin County prevented him from acquiring in boyhood. It took courage to enter the sixth grade of the city schools, a big brawny man among babes. Unaccustomed to cities and civilization, he felt ill at ease away from his native woods. His hands were better acquainted with the ax than with the pen and pencil, but he stuck to his task while the blush of shame mounted his cheek as he sat among the little children of the grade. His teachers did not find him an apt scholar, but they bowed before the originality of his untutored mind.

Three years were spent in the grades and two in the high school, after which he left the Dominion of Canada and came to Minnesota, at the age of twenty-five.

In the fall of 1890 he began lay preaching in the Methodist Episcopal church at Annandale, Minnesota, and for two years labored in that field; doing very successful work. He was fortunate in the companionship of Dr. A. M. Ridgeway, a young physician who had recently begun to practice in the village. This friend did all he could to cover the defects of the frontiersman and to aid him to self-improvement. It was largely through Dr. Ridgeway's persuasion that Higgins gave up his work at Annandale and went to Hamline University to continue his studies. For two years he applied himself to books, but owing to the scarcity of funds he was compelled to preach on the Sabbaths, and the small salary thus obtained helped to support him in the University. The name of the late Rev. L. M. Merritt, of Onesta M. E. Church, Duluth, Minnesota, is held by him in revered memory for the timely encouragement and assistance rendered him at this period.

In 1895 the way opened for him to enter the service of his mother church. The Presbyterian Church at Barnum, Minnesota, was offered to him and the layman found himself in the denomination of his youth. The work at Barnum, Minnesota, changed the whole course of his life.

RIVER CREW ON LAKE BEMIDJI

[CHAPTER II.]
THE WORK AT BARNUM, MINNESOTA.

The new field to which Mr. Higgins went was a lumber town. Barnum, Minnesota, had a population of less than four hundred, but the nearby lumber camps added considerably to its business interests. The Presbyterian Church at that place was weak, and when Presbytery sent the young Canadian there to advance the cause of Christ, it also took him under its care as a student for the ministry, and assigned studies suited to his special case.

At Barnum, Frank Higgins first came into touch with the loggers of Minnesota. On all sides were the camps crowded with men who felled the forests during the winter, and in the spring floated the logs over lake and river to the large sawmills farther south.

Shortly after he changed his residence to the lumber town, he went with several friends across the country to where the river drivers were at work on the Kettle River drive. It was spring. The ice-locked lakes and rivers were once more open, and now the accumulated logs that had been placed on the icy lakes and streams were floating with the current to the city mills.

After several hours traveling through a rough and new country, parts of which were cut over lands, scenically uninviting, the party arrived at the point of the river where the men, who, in the parlance of the loggers are called "riverpigs," were at work. In midstream the men were sacking logs with peavey, or directing with pike pole. From log to log the skillful drivers leaped, now riding on the huge timbers, now wading in the shallows, or following the logs from the shore. It seemed an easy thing to do, to ride the swift moving logs, but only a master can keep his place on the unsteady, rolling steed.

In a bend of the river, below the place where the drivers were working, the large flat-boat called the wannigan, was tied. The wannigan is a floating bunkhouse, cookshed and store combined. In it the men make their home during the drive. The supper hour was near when the visitors arrived at Kettle River; the journey had been long, so the disturbing blast of the cookee's horn was a welcome sound. In response to the call the rivermen hastily made for shore, and headed for the grassy place near the wannigan. The example of the workers was followed by the visitors, who helped themselves to iron knives and forks, tin spoons, cups and dishes. The wet drivers sat around the campfire and ate with a heartiness that comes from a life spent in "God's own open air."

The men lounged about the fire after the meal, and the topics of the village and the happenings of the river were discussed. Just as the sun was tossing back his lingering kisses at the sleepy forest and ever wakeful river, the riverpigs requested Mr. Higgins to give them a gospel service. It was a surprising request, coming from such a source, for the river drivers looked and acted as if they cared not for these things. The preacher had heard their fluent profanity as they directed the logs, and when they asked for the gospel he could not veil his surprise. But the request was in harmony with the hour. Nature was worshiping. The solemn hush of the evening was upon tree and stream and even the ceaseless babble of the river came only in whispers. Man felt a desire to join in the Creator's praise, and where is there a better sanctuary than in the cloistered halls of the greenwood, on the banks of a crystal stream?

Taking a log for a platform, unaided by Bible or hymn book, Mr. Higgins began the service. "Nearer My God to Thee" was the hymn, and the men of the pickpole joined heartily in the song, "Jesus Lover of My Soul;" they sang until it seemed that the sunset joined in the praise and the trees of the field clapped their hands in timely melody. Over the running river the tall pines caught up the music and bowed in reverence, while the echoes answered back, "Oh, Receive My Soul at Last."

With what supreme interest the men about the camp-fire listened to the old, old story of Christ who loves the wanderer! The shades of night fell low upon the darkening earth while the preacher spoke of The Light of The World, and the men sat wrapped in thoughts of things they had forgotten or never known. Recollections of the home tree came back to some, and the sweet lullaby of a mother stole into minds long forgetful of home and other days. At the spring of boyhood they drank again, and the counsels of youth came with hallowed sweetness to the men seated in the playing shadows of the dying fire.

Faces long strange to tears were furrowed. Wishes were born that later became realities of good. Like a voice from another world came the benediction to the group about the bright glowing embers. From across the stream the echo floated back, and the "amen" of nature came like a mother's tender prayer.

On the morrow when the visitors were returning, several of the rivermen went to the preacher and spoke of the pleasure they had derived from the service.

"We're away out here in the timber and it ain't often the church comes our way," said one.

"If some preacher would come here once in a while, he could give us a lift. The Lord knows we need it," added another.

"Can't you come and give us a turn?" they asked.

In response to the extended invitations, Mr. Higgins often went to the drive on Kettle River. An appreciative audience was always waiting—an audience that would gladden the heart of any minister who was anxious to deliver God's message.

Prior to his visit to Kettle River, Mr. Higgins had never been on the drive. Everything about the work was new to him, but he joined the riverpigs on the stream, and added to their merriment by his unskilled attempts at logdriving. Taking the long pickpole, the preacher mounted the floating log, while every driver looked out of the tail of his eye for the soon-coming moment when "his reverence" would descend to the depths—"so far," said one of the men, "that he would draw down the log with a suction." In the midst of their work the drivers shouted advice and encouragement.

But a laugh does not deter a man like Frank Higgins. The love of the forest and river was in his blood, and the strong body and determined will welcomed the difficulties of the river. Even the discomforts of a sudden bath did not cool his zeal. He believed that if these men were to be his hearers he must know how to appreciate their labors, and that appreciation could only be acquired by passing through the intricacies of the calling. So skill came with practice, and a knowledge of the drive after many sudden descents into the flowing waters.

This was a part of the equipment for ministering—a strange preparation—but men whose labors demand strength of limb and skill of body are more likely to listen to him who can prove his physical ability. In the estimation of some, manual labor may not preserve the dignity of the cloth, but it adds to the dignity of the man. The lumberjacks and rivermen have no admiration for him who is fearful of hardship, or succumbs before the strenuous labor which they themselves must daily perform. The pineries is no place for weaklings, nor the drive for the fearful. Among these men physical prowess wins where mental powers fail to get a hearing, but the combination of both, backed by a strong desire to serve, is a combination sure of success.

"When you are in Barnum I want you men to remember me," said the preacher to the drivers. "My home and church are open to you. You are just as welcome as the people of the village."

Shortly after the above invitation the boys came to town. It was Sunday, and the hour of the morning service. Three big rivermen entered the church and took seats in the rear of the building. They were dressed as the necessities of their vocation require, flannel shirts resplendent in fighting colors, broad belts, and heavy spike-soled boots. It was no small sensation their presence created. Barnum was a lumber town, but although accustomed to the lumberjacks and drivers, it had never seen them in church. The saloons were their known retreats.

Before beginning the service Mr. Higgins went down to the drivers and bade them welcome.

"We thought we'd drop in and see if you'd make us as welcome in the gospel shop as we made you in the bunkhouse," said the spokesman. "I guess he has, Bill," he said, turning to his friend.

After that they came to the little church whenever they sundayed in town. With the trio came others, for they knew they would be hospitably received. This proved to the minister that the man who wants a larger parish has only to remove the fence that encloses his present one.

As often as his pressing duties would allow it, the missionary followed his new found flock. The distance was great to Kettle River, yet he walked to the camp that service might be held on the bank of the stream. From the memories of the men who heard and of him who preached, the pleasure of those sunset gatherings will never be effaced. Kettle River drive was more fruitful than preacher or logger dreamed.

Although Mr. Higgins grew to manhood in a timber country, yet he never had visited a large lumbercamp until the winter following his residence at Barnum. In his youth he had logged in the forests of Dufferin County, Ontario, but the lumbering was on a small scale—it was only the logging of farmers. Around Barnum, Minnesota, the camps were operated by the lumber kings of the west. The winter's cut was counted in millions of feet, not by hundreds or thousands.

In the fall of 1895 a delegation of lumberjacks came to the Sky Pilot's home in Barnum and asked to be taken into the circle of his ministration.

"We need you just as much as the camp of drivers you preached to in the spring," they said, and they looked the part they professed.

Camp after camp petitioned for his services, and so the work grew until all the logging camps around the village were receiving occasional services from the unordained man who served the Presbyterian Mission Church at Barnum. The field was large, white for a willing harvest, but the laborers were few, few indeed—only one.

Mr. Higgins had recently married, and through the union encouragement and effectiveness was given to his work in village and camp. In October of 1895 Mr. Higgins was married to Miss Eva L. Lucas of Rockford, Minnesota. Miss Lucas was an active church worker in her own town, and after her marriage the bride often went with her husband to the filthy camps and furnished music on the little portable organ. Her presence was appreciated by the foresters, and with the lead of the organ the music was bettered.

These were days of exacting labor and little pay. In his spare moments Frank Higgins was trying to supplement the loss of university and seminary training, and the midnight lamp glowed in the study as he sought to prepare himself for ordination. There were sermons to prepare, calls to make, the dead to bury, and a thousand unexpected duties that are ever attendant on a village pastorate. But louder than all the demands was the ever increasing Macedonian cry from the camps for services and assistance. So much to be done and so little one could do in comparison to the demand! Frank Higgins never asked for "flowery beds of ease." His physical strength was unlimited, and he loved action rather than repose. With the joy of a strong man he attacked his work and found an increasing happiness in duty done. A few days after one of his visits to the camps, two lumberjacks came to his door.

"We want you quick," they said, "we've brought one of the boys from the camp to his homestead. He's asking for you. He's a very sick man."

In company with the woodsmen Mr. Higgins went through the forest to the log cabin of the homesteader. The doctor had just arrived. Turning to Mr. Higgins, the physician said:

"If we could get him to St. Luke's Hospital in Duluth there would be a chance for him. He cannot obtain the necessary care here in his shack."

Mr. Higgins volunteered to accompany the sick man. They bundled the patient snugly into a sleigh, drove to the depot, and in a short time were in the hospital.

Only a few minutes passed before the physician in charge came to Mr. Higgins and said:

"There is no chance for your friend's recovery. You had better break the news to him, for he is beyond our help."

Gently, tenderly, the rough camp preacher told the dying man of his condition and asked him to make preparation for the nearing end.

A SMALL CONGREGATION

The lumberjack looked up at the weeping minister, and smilingly said: "Thank God you came to the camp that night. I heard you preach of a Savior, and all my being longed to know him. It was the first time in twenty years I had heard the gospel. I was raised in a Christian home, and that night all the lessons of childhood came back to me. When the lanterns were put out, and the bunkhouse was silent, I got on my knees and prayed the forgiving God to forgive the past, and make me a better man. That night Jesus Christ brought his strong salvation to me, and I was forgiven." He paused through weakness and was still, then opening his eyes, now clouded with the mists of death, he looked at the minister.

"Brother Higgins, go back to the camps and tell the boys of my Savior. Go back and tell the old story to the lumberjacks. They need you worse than the towns do. Tell them of Jesus who can make them live, go back to the lonely camps." He ceased to speak. More feebly came the breath, and soon the spirit returned to the God who gave it.

The minister was left with a problem greater than any he had yet attempted to solve. In the corridors of the hospital he walked through the long night, carrying a sense of duty and sacrifice he had never known before. "Can it be possible that God wants me to take up this work?" he asked. "Has God spoken his will through the dying man?" Ambition rebelled against the sacrifice; fond wishes refused to be set aside, but with every tempting prospect came the command of the dying man, "Go back to the boys and carry the story of Jesus." It sounded clearly. No man could misunderstand it. That night all his plans were changed. Ambitions, such as come to all young men, were swept away. The large pulpits of which he had dreamed were superseded by the log or barrel which held the Bible in the camp services, and the future audiences were men rough clothed, rough visaged, who dwelt not in homes of opulence, but slept in the hay-filled bunks in the log camps. That night in the hospital he consecrated himself to the service of God in the logging camps.

He now began to look about the field in which his life work was to be done. The extent of the field and the intensity of the need was appalling. While there were Christian men in the camps, and many whose lives were moral, yet these were few in comparison to the crowd who wasted their lives as did the younger son in the parable.

Ordination was now his great desire, for he wished to go to the men as one who could minister to all their spiritual needs. But ordination was far off. The studies were not completed, and would not be for several years.

The spring after his decision, he was surprised on entering his home to find it filled with a crew of lumberjacks who were returning from the camps.

"Mr. Higgins," began the spokesman, "We've dropped in today to tell you how we've enjoyed the preaching in our camp. The boys want me to make a spiel, but the saw is more in my line. You've treated us white, have given us more advice than we've digested, and never asked to see the color of our money. But this is no one-sided affair. The boys have all chipped in, and here's your stake for service rendered." As he closed he handed the minister a check for fifty-one dollars.

In all his work the missionary had not asked for financial assistance. The boys at first thought he was preaching for "what there was in it," but when he asked not for money, they realized that love and devotion was the impelling cause. "The lumberjack is no cheap skate," so they gladly gave in return.

Through the benevolence of the woodsmen, Mr. Higgins saw a new possibility. He was willing to give himself to the work, but it was necessary that living and incidental expenses should be met. How to finance the mission work was the question, but now he saw the boys would pay a large part of the attendant expenses if some one would organize the work. The barriers were being removed; the doors were opening. Only, ordination had yet to be received.

The work at Barnum was followed by his taking charge of a church in New Duluth, where the mill hands formed a large part of the population. Acquaintance with the men and their work led to an interest in him, and soon the church was on its feet. The same success that was seen at Barnum followed the New Duluth work, and after a short period of labor there, he was asked to take the Bemidji church. Here in the heart of the logging district the real work of his life began, for as never before he learned the ways of the lumberjack.

[CHAPTER III.]
IN THE HEART OF THE LOGGING DISTRICT.

In the spring of 1899, Frank E. Higgins began his work in Bemidji. The Home Missions Committee of Duluth Presbytery had invited him to assist the little group of Christians in the new town, where assistance was badly needed, for the place was in the heart of the logging district, and was infamous for its traffic in evil. The hosts of sin were well organized, but righteousness needed the encouragement of a strong man.

The Bemidji field was first opened to Christian work by Mr. S. A. Blair, the Sabbath School missionary of Duluth Presbytery, in 1896. In those days no railway reached the place, but the pine forest beckoned to the logging companies and the Mississippi river offered an outlet for the logs. Bemidji could only be reached by following the rough trails through the swamps and around the hills from Walker, Minnesota, thirty-five miles away. Most of the supplies were carried up the lakes and rivers and toted over the portages to the new village.

When Mr. Blair started on his thirty-five mile tramp to Bemidji, the Baptist denomination also decided to send a man to organize for them. But the rains descended and the floods came, until the poorly made roads were more impassable than ever. Not relishing the flooded condition, the immersionist gave up the task—for once water interfered with the Baptist growth. But Mr. Blair, prior to his conversion, had been a lumberjack, and none of these things moved him. Wading the depths and fording the streams, he at last arrived at the hamlet on Lake Bemidji, and organized the work. Later a church was partly built by Mr. Blair, and occasional services were held. It was to take charge of this field that Mr. Higgins turned his steps to the north. He had seen the conditions of the woodsmen in Barnum and other towns, yet he needed the Bemidji experience to show him their real poverty of soul, and their utter helplessness in the face of open, alluring vice. Here he saw them at their worst, given over to shame, encouraged in degradation. They were as sheep without a shepherd, a prey to every spoiler and evil designer.

It would require one whose ability is far above mine to pen a picture that would adequately set forth the low plane of life found in the early days of Bemidji. Since that time it has changed for the better, but it is still influenced by the past and is far from a moral Utopia. Nature has done everything to make the place attractive and restful. Lake Bemidji and Lake Irving are inviting sheets of water with a shore line of nearly fifty miles. The great Father of Waters joins their crystal bodies, and at the point of meeting the little city of Bemidji is built. Every part of the city is pine-covered. Those who platted the place removed only the larger trees, and the homes rest in the shelter of the constant green. Like a huge emerald in a setting of purest silver is the green sheltered city with its rippling lakes and flowing river.

Nature had contributed lavishly, but when man came he brought with him the defects of humanity and painted the fair location with the blackness of unlicensed vice, filling the Eden of beauty with the blight of Sodom. It was a town with a wide open policy, in which saloons abounded, brothels flourished and gamblers worked unmolested. It was known as one of the most shameless places in the state, and in those days seemingly lived up to its reputation. The police force was little more than a name, for the saloon men were "the powers that be." It was to the interest of the liquor men that the town be run as wide open as possible, and the business interests as represented by the liquor sellers were far from the Puritan mould. A convenient double blind was on Justice. The Law was roped and thrown. Rum was the real owner of the town. It was above the Law. It was master.

Gambling was connected with most of the saloons and numerous devices were in sight to attract the indifferent. Not satisfied with what came to them, the runners of the saloons and dens went into the camps to drum up trade for their respective places of business—creating a sentiment that would induce the boys to visit their dens of vice.

The brothels were large and accessible, being near the center of the town. In one of the places a large number of negresses was kept to pander to the bestial instincts of the men.

It would be difficult to give a description of those early day conditions. A citizen of the town remarked, "You can't put enough black in the picture when you try to paint the early Bemidji." In justice to the moral element of the place we must add that there were always those who strove for better conditions, and the efforts they made have met with some success, for the moral conditions of Bemidji in 1907 are vastly superior to the conditions at the time of which we write.

It was early in 1899 when Mr. Higgins became a resident of Bemidji. The Presbyterian church had been organized but a short time, yet it was in a state of coma that was rapidly passing into death. Only two members could be found. A church building had been erected, but because of financial difficulties it had not been finished and was far from attractive or comfortable. Frank Higgins' task was to find the scattered adherents, then complete the building.

For want of a more suitable place of residence, the unfinished edifice became the meeting place and manse combined. The few houses obtainable were mostly rude shacks whose exteriors were covered with tar paper, instead of weather boards, and even these temporary structures, poor and inadequate, were hard to obtain.

During the early part of the Bemidji ministry, Marguerite, the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Higgins, came to bless the parents' hearts and add joy to the missionary home.

The years at Bemidji were strenuous, but successful. The unfinished edifice was enlarged and completed during the first year of the layman's work. The year following found him building the cozy manse, while the membership grew with increasing steadiness. In connection with the church at Bemidji was a station at Farley, and during the third year a little chapel was erected there. By this time the Bemidji congregation had outgrown the capacity of the building and in the fourth year a more commodious and suitable church was built.

In these full years the camps had not been neglected. With the erection of the numerous buildings, to which he had contributed manual labor as well as superintendence, Mr. Higgins' hands were seemingly well filled. In addition to these duties, however, he every winter gave his personal attention to nine camps and regularly visited three of them each week. The seven addresses a week, the miles between the camps, and the pastoral calls consumed the hours, leaving no time for leisure and idleness, while from all sides came the demands of the foresters for religious instruction and services.

One morning when he returned from the camps, Mrs. Higgins told him of an urgent call from the Sisters' Hospital. Hastily he went to the ward and there found Will McDonald, a Highland Scotchman, at the point of death. McDonald had met with a serious accident in the camps. The Sky Pilot and the teamster were well acquainted. McDonald's boyhood days were spent among the bonny hills of the homeland, in a quiet Christian home. In early manhood he came to Minnesota and followed the winter woods. There, amidst the rough life he forgot his early instruction and traveled the ways to which temptation so readily pointed.

On entering the ward the preacher tried to cheer the dying man, but the woodsman turned to him and said:

"It's no use, Frank, the jig is up. I've got to go. I'm nearing the landing with a heavy load. Do you think I'll make the grade?"

He was a teamster and had hauled many heavy loads up the grade, and now he was thinking of the unknown way he was traveling and the possibilities of the journey.

"Yes, you can make the grade, Will, but you will have to look for help," said the preacher.

"You mean I'll have to get another team of leaders to help me up the grade?" he asked.

"That is it," said Mr. Higgins, "but thank God, McDonald, you have the greatest Leader to give you a lift—the Lord Jesus Christ. Every man he has helped has made the grade. Listen, Will, while I read you something." Taking out his pocket testament, he read the story of the prodigal, and how by the Father's help he made the grade. Then came the strengthening text setting forth God's love for a lost world and the needlessness of perishing. "Turn to him, Will, and the grade will be easy."

Kneeling by the bed, the missionary prayed to the loving God for help, asking that the poor broken prodigal might make the grade and safely arrive at the heavenly landing. In the ward the other lumberjacks heard the prayer, and while the tears fell over faces unaccustomed to them, the boys uttered in silence a sympathetic prayer that Will McDonald might reach the hill-top.

A few hours later Mr. Higgins called again at the hospital. The screen was around the bed and by the side sat the sister of charity with book and beads. The Sky Pilot knelt by the Scotchman's side, and when the dying man saw the visitor a smile came upon his face.

"You're right, Frank, a great Leader is Jesus Christ. I couldn't have made the grade without him. I needed his help, and he is strong. I'm going up the grade easily, we're going to make it sure."

A moment more—the missionary bent close to catch the words, for McDonald was passing rapidly away. "Tell the boys I've made the grade," he whispered, and with a smile was gone. He had left the valley; the unfading green of heavenly plains was before him. He was with the great Leader, through whose divine strength many a poor prodigal has made the grade.

The Presbyterian church has always stood for an educated ministry. The demands it makes of its candidates for ordination are of the highest order, and it is well that this should continue. The system of doctrine taught by it demands thorough preparation for the effort of Presbyterianism has ever been directed to the intellect rather than to the emotions. It believes that men should be educated into the Kingdom rather than persuaded into it.

Ever since the night of consecration in St. Luke's Hospital, where the dying man pleaded with him to "go back to the camps and tell the boys of Jesus Christ," Frank Higgins had desired to devote all his efforts to missionary work among the lumberjacks. He felt that he could labor more successfully if he went into the camps as an ordained minister rather than as a layman. There were many who felt that a layman could do the work as effectively as an ordained man, and some even claimed that a layman could do better work in such a field. Frank Higgins did not agree with the latter, and results have proven the correctness of his judgment. "The lumberjacks want no flunkey, but the real thing," as one expressed it. "We don't want a Sunday school teacher, but a full baked Sky Pilot who has got all the degrees agoin'." Mr. Higgins knew this, and wished to go to them as an ordained man, hence his persistence in the pursuit of ordination.

Systematic Theology has its difficulties to the seminarian, but more for him who attempts to master it alone. This and other studies composed the task that Presbytery had placed before Frank Higgins, and it was necessary that a knowledge of these be obtained before the coveted "laying-on-of-hands" be granted. In the presence of his studies he saw the handicap in which he was placed through lack of scholastic training, and with the multitudinous demands of his large field he lacked the time for mental attainments. The nearest Presbyterian pastor was ninety miles away, so he could look for little assistance from that quarter. He could not get advice and instruction from others, he must labor alone.

For seven long years he struggled with his studies, often with disappointing results and with the feeling that it would never be said of him as of Paul, "much learning doth make thee mad,"—although his unsuccessful attempts to acquire the desired learning threatened to this end. Time and again the Presbytery refused to grant the petitioner's request for ordination. Meeting after meeting he came before them for examination, but still they did not feel that they could solemnly set him aside to the work of the Christian ministry. The action of the Presbytery must not be misunderstood. The members saw the lack of training, the mental defects of the man, the rough exterior of the petitioner—for there was little about him to suggest the pulpit—and while they loved and admired the hearty, consecrated missionary, they hesitated to confer the rite of ordination upon him. They were men who knew the standards of the church and felt that, measured by the plumb-line of Presbyterian custom, he did not meet all its requirements. They were only men, and as such were compelled to judge by exteriors. It was not strange that they hesitated, for the sentiment of the church is against the ordination of men who have not qualified in the full course. Stones there are, however, that no contrivance of man can make to shine, yet they fill a niche in the building where a glazed surface would be a conspicuous defect. Such is Frank Higgins. Try to polish him and he is still the same, but a rough ashler is as necessary to the building as a smooth and perfect one.

One of his examiners asked him, "What seminary did you attend?"

"I never saw a seminary," he answered.

"What is your college?" was asked.

"My college is the Bible and yonder forest, as I believe God intended," he replied. "I do not ask for ordination because I am qualified by the schools, but because God calls me, and there is a work waiting for me."

According to custom, the candidate was asked to withdraw while the discussion was held. For three hours the presbyters discussed his case and when the vote was taken the desired privilege was withheld.

Later in the session, in his remarks before the gathering, Mr. Higgins said: "I need not tell you that the decision of this body is disappointing, for I have long desired the boon of ordination. During the last seven years I have appeared before you many times, and asked to be set aside to the ministry. I know my insufficiencies; no man can know them better. I do not blame you for with-holding "the-laying-on-of-hands," but I was ordained of God long years ago to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ, and although unsanctioned by man, I shall still preach the message with which he has provided me. I have asked ordination for the last time. I am satisfied with the call of God. It is sufficient for me. I ask no more." While he spoke, the spirit of God told of the inner life of the candidate and the brethren saw the consecrated heart.

At a special meeting held shortly afterwards, the Presbytery reconsidered its action, and Frank E. Higgins was ordained. While the Presbytery had hesitated, it has never regretted its final action. It has never ceased to rejoice in the labors of the determined, undiscouraged man who amidst manifold labors and difficulties, worked, waited and prayed seven years, like Jacob of old.

His oft-repeated prayer for ordination having been answered, he looked to the camps as the field of his future endeavor. "Lord, open the door," he had asked, and the door was opened. At the time of his ordination the Bemidji congregation was building the new church. Mr. Higgins helped in the manual labor. One day while he was shingling the tower a boy brought him a letter requesting him to come to Winona Lake, Indiana, and consult with the Evangelistic Committee relative to the conditions in the logging camps. As a result of the conference Frank Higgins was commissioned to take charge of this work in Minnesota. The appointment was made in August, 1902, and with it came the real opportunity for which he had waited since the night in the hospital. He was going "to tell the boys of Jesus Christ."

Shortly after his return to Bemidji the Rev. Frank Higgins took a strange ministerial, or rather, unministerial vacation. The woodsmen of winter are farm hands, railroad constructionists and wanderers in summer, and Mr. Higgins decided that he would acquaint himself with the summer life of the men. His visits to the camps during the past seven years had already given him a knowledge of their winter conditions. Donning the clothes of a laboring man, he mounted a freight train and started on a long western trip of quiet investigation. In western North Dakota he labored for several days as a harvest hand, meeting many of the men he had preached to in the Minnesota camps. From this place he shipped with a gang of laborers and worked as a scraperman on a new railway in Montana. Shortly afterwards he was with the pick and shovel gang at The Dalles in Oregon, only to leave and work as a deck hand on a boat going down the Columbia river. Portland, Oregon, ended his western trip.

In all parts of his hobo trip he found the winter woodsmen, some laboring, some leisurely passing the warm and sunny days in idleness. Mr. Higgins visited the larger churches wherever he stopped and as a workingman entered their doors to see the reception they would tender to a man who apparently belonged to the wanderers. The trip broadened his experience and gave an insight into the life of the nomads among whom he was shortly to take up permanent work. He saw the life as one who had lived and experienced a portion of it. He felt the pangs of hunger, encountered the slights and rejections, the hardships and lovelessness to which their lives were subjected, and out of the knowledge came a broader sympathy, a more ready ability to help.

When he returned to Bemidji the new church was ready for dedication and after a few weeks he left the pastorate to give himself wholly to the twenty thousand men of Minnesota's camps. The field was ready and he now became in reality, "The Lumberjack Sky Pilot."

FILLING THE WATER-TANK—THE STREET SPRINKLER OF THE FOREST

[CHAPTER IV.]
THE LUMBERJACK IN THE CAMPS.

A brief description of the camps and of the camp life will add to the interest of the reader who is unacquainted with the logging industry.

When a lumber company contemplates logging in a given locality, a cruiser is sent through the forest to estimate the amount of lumber it will cut. After the report of the cruiser has been received, a crew of experienced woodsmen follows, and selects the place for the camp or camps, and lays out the logging roads. This latter is not an easy task, although to the inexperienced it seems to be, for the road must be as nearly level as the possibilities of the land will allow. A hill to be surmounted means a reducing of the size of the load and an increase in the cost of hauling; a grade scarcely enough to be noticed in ordinary traffic also adds danger and uncertainty to the haul. If there is a grade, its descent must be towards the landing, hence the need of skilled road-makers. It is in the early fall of the year that these logging roads are made. Trees are felled, every stump is removed and the little hills are leveled until there appears in the forest a broad, level, often winding avenue that suggests a city speedway. When the cold binding wind of the north has frozen hill and glen and the swamp lands have become resistant to the tread, the rut cutter is sent over the newly made roads. This heavy, unsightly piece of mechanism cuts a deep groove or rut in each side of the road. Later these ruts are partly filled with water and in the icy track the great runners of the heavy logging sleds travel with ease and safety. The logging sleds are huge affairs. The runners are eight feet long. The weight of the sled with its chains is about thirty-five hundred pounds—a good load in itself under normal conditions. On these sleds the logs are hauled to the landing, and from there pass by stream or rail to the distant sawmills.

The camp is generally placed near the center of the land or on an elevation convenient to water. The buildings of the camp consist of a cookshed made large enough for cooking and dining-room purposes, a bunkhouse to house the men, a blacksmith shop, barns and office. All these are built of logs chinked with clay, and are quite warm, if properly constructed.

A view of the interior of the cookshed is always interesting and visitors to the camp are apt to journey in that direction first of all, not simply because of appetite, but to satisfy their curiosity relative to the comforts of the crew. At one end of the room stands a large stove. The walls of the place resemble the interior of a country store, where all for man or beast is offered to the buyer. The rest of the space is reserved for the dining-room, and the tables present the appearance of a sea of oilcloth. The table dishes are of tin, but in a few camps enamelware has very acceptably been introduced. Substantial iron knives and forks, and unsubstantial tin spoons are instruments of adornment and utility. The condiments or relishes are in boxes of large capacity or in bottles that once did duty for a favorite brand of whisky or a much-lauded patent medicine. Often the labels remain on the bottles and the visitor is uncertain as to the sociability of the place or its unhealthfulness, and if not enlightened by the knowing ones he is apt to go without the desired vinegar or catsup—unless he is so constituted as to be ever on the lookout for a chance "to wet his whistle."

The interior is substantial in appearance, but not altogether conducive to good appetite. "We use oleomargarine all the time," says a large placard adorning the walls, and the writer has never doubted the statement; in fact, he is willing to make an affidavit that it was used in every camp he visited, or at least a substitute whose dissembling he was willing to believe.

SAID TO BE THE LARGEST LOAD OF LOGS EVER HAULED OUT OF A CAMP, 31.480 FEET

"No talking at the tables" is conspicuous in some camps, and this is probably a wise precaution for it saves time, keeps the men from quarreling, and in case the food is not up to the standard the grumbler is silent until after he has left the table. But the food is generally better than the outsider would expect. It is strong, substantial, abundant, and of good quality, to which is added variety. The fastidious would hardly be satisfied with the service, but it is not intended for the fastidious. He who labors in the pine-laden air is not likely to quarrel with the service if the quality is right and the quantity abundant. Beef, pork, potatoes, beans, peas and other seasonable vegetables form the bill of fare of the camps.

The bunkhouses are large and roomy. On the long sides of the building double-decked bunks are built with the ends toward the center of the room, "muzzle-loaders," the boys call them. Owing to the unsanitary conditions, it does not take long to generate a goodly number of "company," to use the name by which the woodsmen designate the vermin. Fortunately, some of the camps are better kept and the men escape this additional irritation. A large cylindrical wood-stove is installed in the center of the room, and above it is built a rack for drying the clothes of the men. Since every lumberjack wears several pairs of socks to keep out the cold, this rack in the evening holds several hundred pairs. In the heat of the place the drying socks begin to blossom, and it has been noticed by others than botanists that roses and socks do not produce a like aroma. Few of the bunkhouses have any tables. Water and tin basins are near the door for the use of those acquainted with the custom of bathing.

In the office where the clerk, the bosses, scalers and others of more pretentious occupation sleep, one corner is set apart for the wannigan, as the small camp store is called. Here the workers buy clothing, shoes, tobacco and the few articles needed in the camp. The stock is not extensive, but the price of the articles is far reaching. One of the clerks said, "I have charge of the wannigan—the first graft of the lumberjack."

Where once the timid deer cropped the tender herbage, the rough camps of the lumbermen are seen. Before the mighty swing of the keen blades the solitudes are passing away. In Minnesota, two billion board feet of lumber represent the cut of the winter months, and in the camps and mills almost forty thousand men are employed. Logging is an extensive industry, and it has been brought to a high degree of efficiency in Minnesota.

Every day the tote teams pass between the camps and the village carrying provisions for man and beast. These teams are the means of communication between the foresters and civilization.

Where there are several camps owned by the same company, the most important personage is the representative of the company who is known among the men as the "walking boss," because he is always passing from camp to camp, seeing to the interests of the firm. The "walking boss" gives his orders to the subordinate boss who has charge of an individual camp. This subordinate is known as the "push." Under the "push" is another who goes by the name of the "straw push." The camps have their own nomenclature, and some of the names are interesting and humorous. The carpenter is the "wood butcher;" the clerk is the "ink splasher," or the "bloat that makes the stroke;" the man who tends the logging roads and keeps them free from anything that would interfere with the heavy sleds is called the "road monkey;" the workman who keeps the fires in the bunkhouse and does odd jobs around the camp goes by the title of "bull cook," because, in the old days when oxen were used his duty was to see to their comfort; the missionary is known as the "sky pilot," and the top-loader is called the "sky hooker." Besides these named there are the cook and cookees, skidders, teamsters, sawyers, swampers, the barn boss and the blacksmith.

"In the works" where the trees are felled, the men work in crews. The sawyers bring the giants to the earth and the swampers clear the trunk of its branches and make the openings through which the logs are drawn to the skidways. After the tree has fallen, a man called the "punk hunter" examines it to see if it be sound and marks the dimensions into which the log is to be sawn.

The loads hauled from the skidways to the landings average differently in the camps, owing to the condition of the roads. Where the roads are the best the amount drawn by two or four horses is almost incredible. In 1905 a load of logs was hauled into Tenstrike, Minnesota, which scaled over twenty thousand feet. One of the camps situated near Shell Lake, Wisconsin, is said to have hauled the largest load of logs ever drawn out of a camp by four horses. The load contained thirty-one thousand four hundred and eighty feet. A thousand feet in the green log, with its attendant slabs and bark, will weigh nearly eight thousand pounds. The above figures will give some idea of the great weight of the loads, and also of the perfection to which the road-making must be carried to make such results possible.

Into these camps with the coming of winter the lumberjacks crowd. "Why is it that they are willing to go into isolation and hardship?" you ask. We can only answer, "Why does the sailor go down to the sea in ships?" It seems to get into the blood. Douglas Malloch, in "The Calling of the Pine," says:

"When I listen to the callin' of the pine,
When I drink the brimmin' cup of forest wine—
Then the path of life is sweet to my travel-weary feet
When I listen to the callin' of the pine."

There are lots of men who have followed the camps from boyhood. I met one man who had spent forty-four winters in the woods and his brother almost as many. It had become a second nature to them and the lure of the camps was irresistible.

In the towns and villages adjacent to the camps the lumberjacks are seen at their worst because civilization only welcomes them to its vices; in the camps the woodsmen are seen at their best because the causes of their depravity are absent. These big, hearty fellows may be strong in vices, but they are by no means lacking in virtues. They have their code of honor, and the man who departs from it will find it necessary to depart from the camp. Depraved as are most of them, yet in many ways they command the respect of the men who are acquainted with their better natures.

The old lumberjack will not tolerate the least word of slander against a good woman. If she is entitled to his respect she is entitled to his defense. He may be steeped in vice himself, but he esteems those whose lives are clean, and a good woman appeals to his chivalry. A woman is as safe in the camps as in her own home; her purity is her protection and his respect goes out to her. The Sisters of Charity go through the camps soliciting for the hospitals and schools. Between the camps they are often miles from any habitation and when night overtakes them they sleep in the camps. I have never heard of one of them being molested in these lonely trips, and among the rough, profane foresters they are as safe as behind the carefully locked doors of the convent. The lumberjack who would molest one of them, or any good woman, would probably not leave the camp alive. Shielded by her womanhood, she is safe even among the men who are foreign to restraint.

On one occasion a camp foreman with his wife entered the caboose of a logging train. In the car a number of men were drinking. The bottle was passed around and all drank, the foreman included. As the bottle went the rounds it was offered to the foreman's wife, but scarcely had the bottle been extended to her when the husband floored the donor with his fist and proceeded to kick him out of the car. He was not going to allow any man to treat his wife as a woman of the street.

In the settling of disputes, nature's weapons are the sole instruments used. The fist is the arbiter, although the boot is sometimes called into exercise. The gloves and wrestling help to pass many lonely hours, but sometimes these friendly bouts generate a battle in which hate is the ruling passion. Fights due to personal animosity are to be expected where men are free from the restraints of civilization. In one of the camps an ex-convict worked and for some unknown reason made life unbearable to a pleasant, easy-going Irishman. The ex-convict was ever trying for a fight, but the Irishman's blood was more sluggish than that of the average son of Erin. At last the attacks were more than the peace-loving fellow could stand. (How does the proverb read? "Beware of the wrath of the silent man.") He went to his bunk and put on his spike boots and rushed out to meet the ex-convict. With a blow of his fist he floored the former prisoner and, beside himself with rage, kicked him until the body of his tormentor was a bloody jelly. Had not the loggers interfered the ex-convict would have been murdered. The wounded man was taken to the hospital, where he remained for several weeks, and on recovering he left for other parts, to the satisfaction of all concerned.

Though the labor is hard and the hours long, for the men are at work when the sun appears and it is dark when they leave the works, yet there is a constant variety in their lives. It takes little to amuse them, and less to make them "jump their jobs." The lumberjack is not apt to complain when things go wrong, but rather to walk into the office and demand his wages, after which he will proceed to another camp. Sometimes a whole camp will suddenly leave because of some imposition or provocation that may in itself seem slight. One of the men last winter "took the cake" in this. He went into the cookshed for his breakfast, but being a little late found that the pancake dough was all gone and there were no cakes for him. He immediately went to the clerk and demanded his wages. Here is another case:

Something had gone wrong and Jack Olson was ready to leave the camp. He proceeded to the office and demanded the amount due him, but the clerk was a surly bully and in reply tossed the little Norwegian out of the office. Against such physical tactics Olson felt he could do nothing, so he sat around the bunkhouse until his bunkmate returned from the works.

"The bloat wouldn't give you your stake, hey?" said bunky.

"And he kicked me out of the office," added Olson.

Bunky was interested, very interested. His eyes twinkled as he thought of the splendid opening the action of the clerk had given him for a little added excitement.

"Come on, John, old boy," he said, affectionately taking Olson by the waist and leading him to the office. "Come on and watch the free show while the bloat makes out your check and mine."

Arriving at the office, bunky entered it with a jar.

"Sit down there, John, in that reserved seat while I raise the curtain and turn on the red fire."

Stepping close to the clerk, Olson's husky bunkmate shook his monstrous fist under the nose of the astonished time-keeper, and said:

"Are you the guy that splashes ink? Then sprinkle out my walk and do it infernally quick. Sprinkle out Olson's, too, and if you don't hurry this little shack will look like Hades upset. Splash the ink blank lively or I'll make a blotter out of you."

Without a word the "guy that splashes ink" began his work and the walks were sprinkled out in record time. Bunky and Olson left the office with the air of victorious generals and traveled to the nearest town to blow in the stake in fitting celebration.

Card playing is a great time killer in some of the camps and when the towns are not accessible the woodsmen often spend the whole of the Sabbath playing with the greasy cardboards. Some of the proprietors do not allow card playing and they say the prohibition has caused a more peaceful state. Since the Logging Camp Mission now distributes large quantities of literature a number of the workmen spend their spare moments in reading.

Many of them will discuss spiritual matters, and in language that is shockingly contrasted with the subject, for so habituated are they to profanity that it does not appear to the speaker as in the least incongruous.

After one of the meetings it was discovered that Mr. Higgins had left a hymn book. The forgotten book fell into the hands of a lumberjack who could read music and who possessed a good voice. The following evening he began to sing the hymns and the camp gathered to listen.

"That's a d—n fine song," said the singer enthusiastically, "the show don't reach it, not by a Hades of a sight."

He sang another and remarked on closing, for the sentiment of the song appealed to him:

"How the devil do they think of such fine things? It's the prettiest little son of (the nameless) that I ever heard." This was said admiringly, and with the intention of expressing appreciation, but the habit of the man was profane and he knew not how to express his feelings unless with verbal gestures.

Profanity is so common to some of them that they seem to swear with every breath they draw. An old-timer told the writer of an incident he had witnessed. They were loading cars with a steam jammer. The sky-hooker, or top-loader, who was exceptionally profane, was at his post on the top of the car. One of the logs did not come up in the way that suited him and he broke into a stream of profanity that startled even the lumberjacks. The sky-hooker ended his profanity with a direct appeal to all the Persons of the God-head—a most unspeakable oath.

"It was the most blasphemous sentence I ever heard," said the old-timer, "and we stood around startled." Less than ten minutes afterwards the hook broke, and an enormous log weighing several tons crushed the body of the hooker to pulp. "The Father had answered," reverently remarked the woodsman. "I used to swear in those days but I never have since."

If you wish to meet generous-hearted fellows, visit the logging camps. Anyone who has dealings with the lumberjacks will testify to the truth of the above statement. The typical lumberjack is large-hearted, touched with generous impulse and responsive in his desire to ameliorate suffering. Often he will impoverish himself to give to the causes that help humanity. Money is of little value to him; it only represents the power of producing a short-lived pleasure, and he is therefore willing to share with others that they may be happy. As the following incidents will illustrate:

One of the men had taken his family to the camp and built a little shack in which to house them during the winter. Mr. Higgins had held services in the camp, and the logger requested him to baptize their baby when he next visited them. Happening to be in the city shortly afterwards the missionary mentioned the fact of the coming baptism and the ladies of the church in which he was speaking thought they would contribute to the happiness of the occasion by sending the baby a bundle of clothing. The missionary presented the package after the baptismal service was concluded and the parents hastened to view the contents.

A crowd of campmen had been invited to witness the christening of "our kid," as they called the baby, and when they saw that the articles sent to the child were second-hand garments their wrath kindled. "Our kid" was insulted and every man resented it.

"We're no paupers," they cried. "What do the city folks mean by insulting the kid with duds like these?"

"That kid has got to have the best glad rags. No make-overs for him."

A collection was immediately taken, and every generous soul cast in his two bits so that the kid of the camp could hold up his head.

B—— R—— was taken sick and had to leave the camp. For a year disease held him in its grip. He was a man of family, having a wife and seven children who were dependent on his labors. Death visited the home and took one of the children, adding to the financial burden. The news of the family's needs came to Wilson Bros.' Camps 2 and 3, and immediately ninety dollars was raised and sent to Mr. R—— to help him along. The boys were willing to respond and gave gladly.

Many a poor fellow has found true charity among these men, for their hearts are large and given to generosity. The dead lumberjack does not find a corner in the potter's field, the boys see that he is decently interred; the sick do not often fall on the community, for they are helped by their fellows. Say what you will about the lumberjack, but put the grace of charity to his credit, and let it cover a multitude of sins.

There is little chance for personal cleanliness in the camps. No facilities are there for bathing unless one is willing to do so in the presence of the whole camp; the clothing is often worn much longer than is conducive to health, and many of the things we consider so essential are missing, yet few of the men are affected with sickness. Unsanitary are the surroundings, but the hours in the pure air and the hard, active lives of the workers seem to counteract the disease-breeding conditions. Most of the cases that go to the hospitals are due to accidents rather than to disease. Accidents are all too common in the camps. Felling the large trees is never without hazard and the loading of the logs is more dangerous still. The heavy hauling adds an element of uncertainty, particularly where there are grades to be run on the way to the landing. It requires skill to let a load down the grade. This is done by means of sand or hay being placed in the ruts so that the runners of the sled are retarded in the descent, but if the load be checked suddenly it will cause the logs to shift, endangering the life of man and beast.

From what has been written in the foregoing chapters we do not desire to convey the impression that all the campmen are depraved and sunken in vice. There are all kinds and conditions of men among them. Many of them have been well educated, have come from homes of refinement and ease, but through adversity have gone to lower plains of life. Others have followed the woods from youth and feel that they are not fitted for any other class of labor, yet amidst surroundings that tempt to viciousness they have kept their moral virtues with scrupulous care.

The campmen are a neglected class of men. No one has in past years tried to touch them with the elevating power of good. They are what they are because their labors have isolated them from civilization and its agencies for good, while the vices of the provinces have followed them because there were dollars to be gained. The railway men of a few years ago were almost in the same condition as the lumberjacks of today. The saving power to the railroader was the restraint that their homes cast about them, and through their homes the gospel and other adjuncts of civilization were possible, but these are men who are separated from their homes or unblessed with home ties. When Christian indifference was supplanted with Christian activity a change was soon noted among the workers on the railroad and they became a respectable class of men, of whom the nation is justly proud. Y. M. C. A.s were established for their benefit, missions were opened where they congregated, the church held out its hand in welcome, and under the stimulus of gospel encouragement they arose. But what has been done for the lumberjack? Almost nothing. In the camps he works through the dreary, cruel winter, and when he returns to civilization in the spring only the hand of the depraved is extended in welcome.

INTERIOR OF BUNK-HOUSE

[CHAPTER V.]
A VIEW OF THE CAMP SERVICES.

"The woods were God's first temples." I cannot pass through the pineries, beholding the long fingers of cooling green pointing to the eternal blue, without feeling an exaltation of spirit, a desire to praise the Creator. The shrub and towering tree, the aisles of the woods and the sweet soothing comfort of the silence all conduce to prayer and adoration. No temple is more suggestive of worship than that whose dome is of sheltering leaves and whose columns are living, graceful trees. But the camps are the destroyers of the primitive temples, and their denizens are not suggestive of devoutness; yet in the rude hewn shacks of the lumberjacks nature is heard speaking and her voice is persuasively calling to worship. In the gray of dawn her call is clear and sweet, and as the loggers tighten their heavy belts and view the new-born day she whispers, "Praise." In the busy noon day, amidst the bruised and broken tops, the playing winds repeat the echo of the morning, "Praise." Then when the hush of evening falls o'er the dying day and the purple of the west shows through the crown of richest green, the evening shadows take up the chorus, "Praise him for his goodness, for his love to the children of men."

On visiting a camp for the first time Frank Higgins is apt to inquire, "Ever had any preachers up this way?"

"No. Nobody cares whether we make the landing in Hades or not," is likely to be the answer.

"Preachers are only after the stake," said one. "They don't care for us poor devils. Heaven was made for the rich, and not for us lumberjacks. We're only welcome down the slide."

"Well, here is one who isn't after the stake," replied the minister, "and his interest is in the lumberjack."

"Where is the guy? I'd like to meet him," remarked the woodsman, evidently thinking such a preacher must be an unknown variety.

"I'm the fellow," returned the missionary, "and I'll prove it by preaching in the bunkhouse tonight. What time will suit? 7:30, you say? Well, let all the boys know and come prepared to sing. That's your part of the service."

The Rev. Frank Higgins has not much suggestion of "the cloth" about him. If you met him on the logging road there is nothing in his dress to stamp him as a minister, but everything to proclaim him a lumberjack. His dress is that of his parishioners, mackinaw jacket, belt, boots, socks and cap suggest the logger. His physical appearance is in keeping with the camp; he is broad-shouldered and built for endurance. He is not a tall man, being but five feet nine or ten, but his weight is two hundred pounds of muscle. He does not look the preacher, but ask the lumberjacks about it and they will tell you "there is no other."

The supper is over and the men have crowded into the bunkhouse where the meeting is to be held. What an audience! It is cosmopolitan; the ends of the earth have contributed, except the far east. All classes and conditions are in the group, evidences of the best and worst, but on all of them the stamp of isolation—they are far from the accustomed haunts of men, and everything proclaims it. Sixty to one hundred and sixty men are in the log shack. The benches at the end of the bunks are filled with waiting men, the bunks above contain many who are lounging in attitudes of individual fancy. No straight, erect or formal audience is this; it is as free as the forest air, as informal as Eden, but not so cleanly. The congregation is coatless, collarless, often bootless, for probably half of them are in their stocking feet, while the temporarily discarded boots are heaped around the huge stove to dry. Pipes send forth long streams of smoke, and in various parts of the room card games are in progress. Extra lanterns hang around the shack, sending out a dim uncertain light that only partly dissipates the gloom of the interior. The cylindrical stove contains the crackling logs and the emitted warmth is the only note of cheer. The rank odor of cheap tobacco mingles with the nauseating aroma of the myriad socks hung above the stove and the poorly ventilated place is stifling, oppressive and depressing. Everything is unsuggestive of the sanctuary, but the Father of men meets with his children in the heavy smelling bunkhouse the same as in the bright, costly cathedral.

Behind the upturned barrel, whose altar cloth is a coarse horse blanket, stands the preacher. No Genevan gown lends its grace to his figure, but coatless he stands, an earnest man, physically fearless, powerful in the love for God and man. The hymnbooks have been passed around, some familiar hymn is announced and the command to sing is given. Not such music as kisses the ear of the worshiper in the fashionable churches, where the trained voices blend in superb harmony, is the music in the camps. It lacks in sweetness, but is not deficient in volume and heartiness.

Scripture is read, or rather recited, for it is nearly impossible to read in the dim light emitted by the lanterns, then the Sky Pilot tells what the gospel can do for the loggers and what the Christ can accomplish in them. He speaks plainly of their wasted lives, the folly of spending their money in the saloons, in gambling dens, in brothels, and points them to Christ, who can keep a man from all that links him to the pit.

Do the men listen to the story of the Savior? Yes, with an interest that can only come from soul-starved men. They have been feeding on the husks, have known the companionship of swine in the form of men and vampires who resembled women, have wanted love and found only vice; so they listen gladly to the news of another life, another world, another love that is clean and pure. Their dreams have been of heaven, but their lives have been lived in hell, and the Sky Pilot's story seems to make the dream attainable.

I well remember a sermon he preached on the Prodigal Son, but the environment must be present if one is to reproduce the sermon. It was well suited to the audience, plain, too plain for a city audience, but an unmistakable message for the men of the forest. Figures of speech had little place in it; of poetry there was little except the poetry of direct simplicity; it was unadorned Anglo-Saxon with the crash and clang of the language in its strength, but it was a story full of love, hope and cheer that appealed to the hundred men who breathlessly listened while the wind of winter beat the drifting snow against the camp.

Here are some extracts given wholly from memory:

"One of the boys stayed at home and one left the old homestead. Now it wasn't the fellow that stayed at home that the father was worrying about, but the fellow that packed his "turkey" and went out to blow his stake. You lumberjacks are in that youngster's place and the old folks are wondering where you are and what you are doing. Because a man leaves home it isn't necessary to be a prodigal, but his chances to make a fool of himself are better if he is away from the old home and its memories."

Then came the story of his own home-leaving and how the mother watched him until the turn in the road hid him from view.

"That mother's prayers have followed me through life. My story is yours with the names changed. Some one wants to hear that you still live. Write a letter tonight.

"Because the fellow had money he found friends, but there never was a friend worth having who was made or bought through money. This young fellow in the parable reminds me of the lumberjack coming down the river in the spring and landing in one of the logging towns. Men who have never heard of him become his friends at once; the barkers of the dens wait at the train to give him the glad hand; he has friends galore and is the most popular man that enters the town—he has money. Then they bleed him to a finish, as they did the prodigal in the Bible. There are men in these towns who have your wages figured up already and they smile and chuckle as they toast their shins at the base burner, thinking what a good time they will have with your money when you come down in the spring. Don't think you are working for yourselves; the saloonmen and their crowd are the ones who cash your checks and bank your coin. Some of the men in the saloon business that came to these parts when I did and were as poor as I am, are now living in the finest houses in the north and eat the best the land affords. The wives of these men are dressed in silks, and their hands and necks glisten with the jewels you bought with your winter's labor—but you still wear the coarse socks and haven't a cent in the bank. Now, men, were you ever invited into the homes you built for the saloonmen, gamblers and brothel keepers? Were you ever given an introduction to the wives whom you dressed in silks and jewels? No, and you never will be. They don't want you; they are after your cash. That's how they treated the prodigal of old; that's how they treat the prodigal lumberjack of today.

"Well, after awhile the prodigal was broke and he asked his friends for a lift, but his friends weren't in the lifting business. It was their business to help him to spend, but not to spend for him. Do you remember when you had spent all at the bar, the wheel, or the brothel, how you asked a loan for a lodging of the man in whose till your winter's earnings rested, and he gave you a hunch to go up river and earn more? Well, the prodigal was in the same boat, for they said to him as they said to you, 'Go up the river, old man. It's the husks and the hogs for you now.'

"But when the men who rob and spoil will not give you a hand, the Father will. In the father's home was the only place the prodigal found a hearty reception, and in the Lord Jesus Christ you will find a welcome."

Then came the gospel message with its cheer and loving hope, the story of how God gave Christ to die that the prodigal might have light and love, and how through him the homestead opens, where love undefiled and almighty help is given unstintedly.

It was a homely sermon, a plain message, a description of life they too well understood because they had too often experienced it. Many a head was bowed in shame as the story of the prodigal's life was told, for the listeners knew it was a tale, not of the times of Christ, but taken from their own lives. When the preacher spoke of the loving Father who warmly welcomes the wanderers there was expectancy in the faces of the auditors.

It was after Mr. Higgins had preached this sermon on a former occasion that a young man came to him for a private conversation. The sermon had awakened a longing for a better life in which real love was to take the place of shame. He had been carried back to the old home, and heard the mother praying for the absent boy.

"Pilot," he said, "I want to pray for myself. Tell me how and I'll do it."

"Come on, my boy," said the Pilot, "and under the pines we'll pray together."

Out under the tall sentinels they went, and there on the frozen snow they knelt while the prayers of the minister and the lumberjack ascended to the ever-approachable throne.

The next day the lad wrote home to his old mother in Quebec, telling her of his hope in Christ and his new relation to God. She had not heard from him in months, and now the news he sent made her join in the raptures of the angel chorus. Immediately she wrote a letter of gratitude to Mr. Higgins and when the missionary read, "For this my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found," he saw a new figure in the parable—it was the prodigal's mother.

After the meeting is over and the shack is lighted only by the stray gleams that steal through the chinks of the stove, some of the men will continue to talk to the minister of their far-off homes and the loved ones they have not seen for years. The years are reviewed and there is a wish that life were different. By the burning fires of the bunkhouse many a long closed heart has been opened and many a life surrendered to God.

Sometimes a man will come to Mr. Higgins after the services and invite the missionary to sleep with him in the bunkhouse. Since the missionaries are generously accorded the privileges of the office by almost all of the proprietors, the invitation of the lumberjack is one that holds in itself no allurement. The bunks in the sleeping quarters of the men are often filled with small annoyances that are fruitful and multiply and disturb the occupants of the bunks. But when such an invitation is given the missionary seldom refuses it. He knows that the man who gives it means more than to share the discomforts of his lodging—he wishes to get near the messenger so that in the darkness and quiet he can secure spiritual aid. In the bunks men have been helped over difficulties and have freely surrendered themselves to the Divine Son. There may be distasteful things to encounter, but the chance to help a man is worth more than the sacrifice of comfort.

It was after a camp service that a young man came to the Pilot and asked:

"Isn't there any way that I can make my life count? I'm sick of going on this way, Pilot. I'm sledding in the wrong direction. Tonight I'm disgusted, so give me a lift."

As a result of the lift he was led to God and encouraged to save his money for future schooling. During the evenings of that winter the young man spent his time in study and when spring came a large part of his earnings were deposited in the bank. The following summer he procured work in the saw mill and books were the companions of his leisure hours. So absorbed did he become in his new purpose that he carried his book to the mill and when the machinery stopped to make repairs out came the book. The proprietor of the mill observed the diligence of the new hand and changed him to the sawdust pile where he could have more time for his books. So absorbed would he become that often he allowed the sawdust to take care of itself. The men called him "the book worm in the sawdust." School followed his winter's work, and now he is a successful civil engineer. In the bunkhouse on the night of his surrender a soul and a life were saved.

That sweet old favorite hymn, the favorite of the home and prayer meeting, the source of comfort in the house of mourning, is the favorite in the camps—"Jesus, Lover of My Soul." Those unloved men of the distant places feel the influence of the hymn which speaks of the tender Christ opening his bosom to the outcast as well as the respected. Its plaintive melody appeals to them, and the lonely men of the forest sing it with the spirit of those who long for sympathy and unselfish love.

The night before they had sung the old song over and over again. The whole camp had joined in with hearty spirit. After the breakfast was over the men went to the bunkhouse to wait for the word of the "push" ordering them to the morning's labor in the works. While they waited one of the men who possessed a rich tenor voice struck up the hymn, "Jesus lover of my soul, Let me to thy bosom fly." One by one the men joined in the song, and the solo passed into a chorus of one hundred voices. Out through the twilight of the morning the melody rolled, waking the sleeping pines and crossing the frozen streams. The men in the stables, harnessing their horses, heard the song and softly whistled it; the cook, busy with his pots and pans, hummed in unison, and the swearing cookee closed his profane mouth and listened in wonder. Over in the office where the proprietor and others of the higher grade of labor made their quarters, the song caused silent amazement, for it did not seem like the morning hour of the camp, where usually only profane sounds break the stillness.

"Other refuge have I none, Hangs my helpless soul on Thee," sang the men. "Leave, ah, leave me not alone," and it came from the hearts of men who knew the weight of lonely weeks and months. The Sky Pilot in the office turned his face to the wall and prayed while they sang.

"All out," cried the "push," and from the bunkhouse streamed the men, singing the song of comfort. Into groups they separated, each going his appointed way, but the song still continued in all parts of the forest, until the sweet melody of the hymn died to tender murmurs and was lost in the distant evergreens. In all that north state no happier body of men went forth to toil, for with them went the spirit of the song.

Sometimes disturbances mar the meetings. But they are not as frequent as in the early days, when it was considered the proper thing in some camps to create a row. The earnestness of the man and the strength of his body has gained respect for this teacher of righteousness. The work, also, is better understood and a realization of the value of missionary effort has brought about a change in sentiment. When Mr. Higgins first began his work he used a little muscular Christianity as well as persuasion in regulating the deportment of the men during the services; now he has learned a better way. The Frenchman who undertook to create a rough house, and suddenly found himself standing on his head in a barrel of water, having been put there by the Rev. Frank Higgins, will not feel like disturbing one of his services again. The persuasion of a man who can physically take care of a religious gathering is a great incentive to undisturbed worship, even though the meeting be held in the forest.

The day after the meeting is the time for personal work, for hand-picked fruit, for heart-to-heart conversations. While the service is in progress the quick eye of the evangelist singles out those who are most receptive to the word of life, and on the morrow he goes to assist by private word the work done in the public meeting. From the clerk he finds where they are working in the forest and goes to join them in their labors. Here is where the finely developed body comes into play for the King. One of the secrets of aiding workingmen is to understand their labors; they admire the man who is capable in their individual line, and Frank Higgins is a woodsman who knows how to swing the ax and pull the saw. While working with them he talks of Christ and tries to draw the worker to him.

In the bunkhouse, during one of the services, an old man sat in his bunk with his little nondescript dog in his lap. Loneliness was written on his deep-lined face; while the others sang he was silent.

"Don't you sing?" asked the missionary, handing him a book.

"None of your blank business," gruffly mumbled the old man.

All through the service the old fellow was silent, seemingly hearing no word of the sermon. The next day the missionary went to the "ink splasher" and inquired where the old man could be found.

"That's Old Grouchy. He's the road monkey and you'll find him on the east road about this time of day," directed the clerk.

"Good morning," was the greeting of the missionary as he came up to the road monkey.

"Mornin'," answered Old Grouchy, in non-committal tones.

"Your roads are in fine shape, almost perfect," said the missionary, sparring for an opening.

"Bad, infernally bad," answered the road monkey.

"Like the job?" asked the preacher to encourage conversation.

"Yes, the way the damned like their lodgings," burst out Old Grouchy. "But what is it to you whether I like it or not? You can't change it."

Before the preacher could make reply the little dog came out of the woods, where he had been in pursuit of a pine squirrel, and came to the minister for attention. It was a dog of many breeds, but the road monkey's eyes fell upon it lovingly and the minister saw the look.

"A good friend of yours, I suppose," said the Sky Pilot.

"The only friend I have," and the tone was soft and reflective.

The minister knew that he had found the opening to the old man's heart and began to talk of his own dog team, the faithfulness and intelligence of the animals and the companionship they freely gave. Old Grouchy joined in the conversation and discussed with freedom the love he felt for the dumb creatures. From this they drifted to matters more personal until the whole story of the man's life was narrated and the cause of his cynicism was bared.

It was a story of startling disappointment, of a home wrecked through unfaithfulness and broken trust. No man could hear the story and remain unsympathetic.

"No wonder you see the world darkened," said the preacher; "if I had your experience I might feel as you do today."

The missionary talked to the man and tried to lead him to the bright paths of peace, but nothing appealed to the sad soul of the lonely man. The gospel gave him no hope, the sun was set, and all was covered with the curtains of night. God to him was dead and in all the world the only love he knew was the dumb affection of the forlorn yellow dog.

When Mr. Higgins went back to that camp in later days the road monkey would listen attentively to the presentation of the loving Christ and seemed to wonder if it were possible that God could care for him.

"Sing, brother," said the missionary. But the old man only shook his head. He would not sing. Nay! he could not. His heart strings were withered; melody had left him through the unfaithfulness of woman. He had passed into the starless night where no glimmer of hope entered, and in his solitude he caressed his little dog and perhaps wondered if the great God cared, if any being was interested in him besides the faithful little animal.

The Rev. Frank Higgins was preparing for the evening service. He had rolled the barrel into the center of the room where it was to do duty as a pulpit. The proprietor of the camp came in and seeing the barrel, but not knowing its intended purpose, appropriated it as a seat. Not wishing to disturb the proprietor, Mr. Higgins stood by his side and conducted the service.

The place was well filled and the interest was intense. The men entered heartily into the singing, and when the sermon came it was full of keen home thrusts. The errors of the lumberjacks were pointed out with freedom and a remedy forced with conviction. The proprietor sitting on the pulpit enjoyed the straightforward way in which the preacher dealt with the lumberjacks, and at every telling shot heartily applauded and added some words of encouragement to the speaker.

"Now you're getting them, Higgins; keep the chips a-flying. Give them another whirl, Pilot; you have them where the hide is thin." With these and other suggestions he added his encouragement.

It happened that while the proprietor was a man whose record as a logger was one of the best in the state, being able to get out his logs where others would fail, yet his morals were far below his business reputation. His son was following in his footsteps, much to the sorrow of the mother and the disgust of the father.