It was here (says he) that the call came.
It was on the way between camps, of a Sunday afternoon in midwinter, when the Pilot related the experience which led to the singular ministerial activities in which he is engaged. He was wrapped in a thick Mackinaw coat, with a cloth cap pulled down over his ears; and he wore big overshoes, which buckled near to his knees. There was a heavy pack on his pack; it contained a change of socks (for himself), and many pounds of "readin' matter" (for "the boys"). He had preached in the morning at one camp, in the afternoon at another, and was now bound to a third, where (as it turned out) a hearty welcome was waiting. The day--now drawn far toward evening--was bitterly cold. There was no wind. It was still and white and frosty on the logging-road.
It seems that once from Barnum the Pilot went vacating into the woods to see the log-drive.
"You're a preacher," said the boys. "Give us a sermon."
Higgins preached that evening, and the boys liked it. They liked the sermon; they fancied their own singing of _Rock of Ages_ and _Jesus, Lover of My Soul_. They asked Higgins to come again. Frequently after that--and ever oftener--Higgins walked into the woods when the drive was on, or into the camps in winter, to preach to the boys. They welcomed him; they were always glad to see him--and with great delight they sang _Jesus, Lover of My Soul_ and _Throw Out the Life-Line_. Nobody else preached to them in those days; a great body of men--almost a multitude in all those woods: the Church had quite forgotten them.
"Boys," said Higgins, "you've always treated me right, here. Come in to see me when you're in town. The wife 'll be glad to have you."
They took him at his word. Without warning, one day, thirty lumber-jacks crowded into the little parlor. They were hospitably received.
"Pilot," said the spokesman, all now convinced of Higgins's genuineness, "here's something for you from the boys."
A piece of paper (a check for fifty-one dollars) was thrust into the Pilot's hand, and the whole crew decamped on a run, with howls of bashful laughter, like a pack of half-grown school-boys. And so the relationship was first established.
It was in winter, Higgins says, that the call came; and the voice of the Lord, as he says, was clear in direction. Two lumber-jacks came out of the woods to fetch him to the bedside of a sick homesteader who had been at work in the lumber-camps. The homesteader was a sick man (said they), and he had asked for the Pilot. The doctor was first to the man's mean home. There was no help for him, said he, in a log-cabin deep in the woods; if he could be taken to the hospital in Duluth there might be a chance. It was doubtful, of course; but to remain was death.