onsible for neglect," he said.
"You have yourselves to blame for it. Nothing can be done now."

The door opened, and Brown turned to find Rosenblatt with a smile
of triumph upon his face. Before he was aware, his open hand had
swung hard upon the grinning face, and Rosenblatt fell in a huddled
heap into the corner. He rose up sputtering and spitting.

"I will have the law on you!" he shouted. "I call you as witness,"
he continued to the agent.

"What's the matter with you?" said the agent. "I didn't see
anything. If you trip yourself up and pitch into the corner, that
is your own business. Get out of this office, you disorderly beast!
Hurry up!" The agent put his hand upon the counter and leaped over.

Rosenblatt fled, terrified.

"Brute!" said the agent, "I can't stand these claim jumpers.
You did that very neatly," he said to Brown, shaking him warmly
by the hand. "I am awfully sorry, but the thing can't be helped now."

Brown was too sick at heart to reply. The mine was gone, and with
it all the splendid castles he and Kalman had been building for the
last six months. He feared to meet his friend. With what heart now
could he ask that this brute, who had added another to the list of
the wrongs he had done, should be forgiven? It was beyond all human
strength to wipe out from one's mind such an accumulation of
injuries. Well for Brown and well for his friend that forty miles
lay before him. For forty miles of open country and of God's sun
and air, to a man whose heart is open to God, work mighty results.
When at last they came together, both men had won their victory.

Quietly Brown told his story. He was amazed to find that instead
of rousing Kalman to an irrepressible fury, it seemed to make but
little impression upon him that he had lost his mine. Kalman had
faced his issue, and fought out his fight. At all costs he could
not deny his Lord, and under this compulsion it was that he had
surrendered his blood feud. The fierce lust for vengeance which had
for centuries run mad in his Slavic blood, had died beneath the
stroke of the Cross, and under the shock of that mighty stroke the
loss of the mine had little effect upon him. Brown wondered at him.

The whole colony was thrown into a ferment of indignation by the
news that Kalman had been robbed of his mine. But the agents of
Rosenblatt and Sprink were busy among the people. Feast days were
made hilarious through their lavish gifts of beer. Large promises
i