Tisdale paused a thoughtful moment.  “No, at least only temporarily, if at all.  Out of those eight millions of acres of coal land already discovered in Alaska, not more than thirty-two thousand acres have been staked—­only one claim, an old and small mine on the coast, has been allowed.”  His glance moved slowly over the jury, from face to face, and he went on evenly:  “You can’t expect capital to invest without some inducement.  The Northern Pacific, the first trans-continental railroad in the United States, received enormous land grants along the right of way; but the Prince William Development Company, which intends ultimately to bridge distances as vast, to tap the unknown resources of the Alaska interior, has not asked for concessions, beyond the privilege to develop such properties as it may have acquired by location and purchase.  Surely the benefit that railroad would be in opening the country to settlement and in the saving of human life, should more than compensate for those few hundreds of acres of the Government’s coal.”

“Mr. Tisdale,” said the attorney sharply, “that, in an employee of the Government, is a strange point of view.”

Tisdale’s hands sought his pockets; he returned Mr. Bromley’s look with his steady, upward gaze from under slightly frowning brows.  “The perspective changes at close range,” he said.  “The Government knows less about its great possession of Alaska than England knew about her American colonies, one hundred and fifty years ago.  The United States had owned Alaska seventeen years before any form of government was established there; more than thirty before a criminal code was provided, and thirty-three years before she was given a suitable code of civil laws.  Now, to-day, there are no laws operative in Alaska under which title may be acquired to coal land.  Alaska has yielded hundreds of millions of dollars from her placers, her fisheries, and furs, but the only thing the Government ever did for Alaska was to import reindeer for the use of the Esquimos.”

Another ripple of laughter passed through the courtroom; even the judge on the bench smiled.  But Mr. Bromley’s face was a study.  He began to fear the effect of Tisdale’s astonishing statements on the jury, while at the same time he was impelled to listen.  In the moment he hesitated over a question, Hollis lifted his head and said mellowly:  “The sins of Congress have not been in commission but in omission.  They are under the impression, far away there in Washington, that Alaska is too bleak, too barren for permanent settlement; that the white population is a floating one, made up chiefly of freebooters and outlaws.  But we know the foundations of an empire have been laid there; that, allowed the use of the fuel Nature has so bountifully stored there and granted a fair measure of encouragement to transportation, those great inland tundras would be as populous as Sweden; as progressive as Germany.”  His glance moved to the jury; all the nobility, the fineness,