"And what did the young man do?" he asked, concerning the Prodigal; "why, he packed his turkey and went off to blow his stake--_just like you!_" Afterward, when the poor Prodigal was penniless: "What about him _then_, boys? _You_ know. _I_ don't need to tell you. You learned all about it at Deer River. It was the husks and the hogs for him--_just like it is for you!_ It's up the river for you--and it's back to the woods for you--when they've cleaned you out at Deer River!" Once he said, in a great passion of pity: "Boys, you're out here, floundering to your waists, picking diamonds from the snow of these forests, to glitter, not in pure places, but on the necks of the saloon-keepers' wives in Deer River!" There is applause when the Pilot strikes home. "That's damned true!" they shout. And there is many a tear shed (as I saw) by the young men in the shadows when, having spoken long and graciously of home, he asks: "When did you write to your mother last? You, back there--and you! Ah, boys, don't forget her!" There was pause while the preacher leaned earnestly over the blanketed barrel. "Write home to-night," he besought them. "_She's--waiting--for--that--letter!_" They listened. XIV THE SHOE ON THE OTHER FOOT The Pilot is a fearless preacher--fearless of blame and violence--and he is the most downright and pugnacious of moral critics. He speaks in mighty wrath against the sins of the camps and the evil-doers of the towns--naming the thieves and gamblers by name and violently characterizing their ways: until it seems he must in the end be done to death in revenge. "Boys," said he, in a bunk-house denunciation, "that tin-horn gambler Jim Leach is back in Deer River from the West with a crooked game--just laying for you. I watched his game, boys, and I know what I'm talking about; _and you know I know!_" Proceeding: "You know that saloon-keeper Tom Jenkins? Of _course_ you do! Well, boys, the wife of Tom Jenkins nodded toward the camps the other day, and, 'Pshaw!' says she; 'what do I care about expense? My husband has a thousand men working for him in the woods!' She meant you, boys! A thousand of you--think of it!--working for the wife of a brute like Tom Jenkins." Again: "Boys, I'm just out from Deer River. I met ol' Bill Morgan yesterday. 'Hello, Bill!' says I; 'how's business?' 'Slow, Pilot,' says he; 'but I ain't worryin' none--it'll pick up when the boys come in with their stake in the spring.' There you have it! That's what you'll be up against, boys, God help you! when you go in with your stake--a gang of filthy thieves like Jim Leach and Tom Jenkins and Bill Morgan!" It takes courage to attack, in this frank way, the parasites of a lawless community, in which murder may be accomplished in secret, and perjury is as cheap as a glass of whiskey. * * * * * It takes courage, too, to denounce the influential parishioner.