Nobody else was doing it. Why shouldn't Higgins? The boys had no minister. Why shouldn't Higgins be that minister? Was not this the very work the Lord had brought him to this far place to do? Had not the Lord spoken with the tongue of this dying man? "Go back to the camps and tell the boys about Jesus." The phrase was written on his heart. "Go back to the camp and tell the boys about Jesus." How it appealed to the young preacher--the very form of it! All that night, the homesteader having died, Higgins--not then the beloved Pilot--walked the hospital corridor. When day broke he had made up his mind. Whatever dreams of a city pulpit he had cherished were gone. He would go back to the camps for good and all. And back he went. * * * * * We had now come over the logging-road near to the third camp. The story of the call was finished at sunset. "Well," said the Pilot, heartily, with half a smile, "here I am, you see." "On the job," laughed one of the company. "For good and all," Higgins agreed. "It's funny about life," he added, gravely. "I'm a great big wilful fellow, naturally evil, I suppose; but it seems to me that all my lifelong the Lord has just led me by the hand as if I were nothing but a little child. And I didn't know what was happening to me! Now isn't that funny? Isn't the whole thing funny?" XI FIST-PLAY It used sometimes to be difficult for Higgins to get a hearing in the camps; this was before he had fought and preached his way completely into the trust of the lumber-jacks. There was always a warm welcome for him in the bunk-houses, to be sure, and for the most part a large eagerness for the distraction of his discourses after supper; but here and there in the beginning he encountered an obstreperous fellow (and does to this day) who interrupted for the fun of the thing. It is related that upon one occasion a big Frenchman began to grind his axe of a Sunday evening precisely as Higgins began to preach. "Some of the boys here," Higgins drawled, "want to hear me preach, and if the boys would just grind their axes some other time I'd be much obliged." The grinding continued. "I say," Higgins proceeded, his voice rising a little, "that a good many of the boys have asked me to preach a little sermon to them; but I can't preach while one of the boys grinds his axe." No impression was made. "Now, boys," Higgins went on, "most of you want to hear me preach, and _I'm going to preach_, all right; but I cant preach if anybody grinds an axe." The Frenchman whistled a tune. "Friend, back there!" Higgins called out, "can't you oblige the boys by grinding that axe another time?" There was some tittering in the bunk-house--and the grinding went on--and the tune came saucily up from the door where the Frenchman stood. Higgins walked slowly back; having come near, he paused--then put his hand on the Frenchman's shoulder in a way not easily misunderstood.