to do—­but did the Government keep its word?  Not at all.  It was charged that some of them hadn’t conformed strictly to the letter of the agreement, and therefore all the claims were blacklisted.  Because one man was alleged to have broken his contract the Government broke its contract with every man who had staked a coal claim, not only at Kyak, but anywhere else in Alaska.  Guilty and innocent were treated alike.  I was one of the latter.  Was our money returned to us?  No!  The Government had it and it kept it, along with the land.  We’ve been holding on now for years, and the Interior Department has tried by various means to shake us off.  The law has been changed repeatedly at the whim of every theorist who happened to be in power.  It has been changed without notice to us even while we were out in the wilderness trying to comply with the regulations already imposed.  You can see how it worked in the case of Natalie and her mother.  The Government succeeded in shaking them off.”

“That’s only one side of the question,” said Eliza.  “You lose sight of the fact that this treasure never really belonged to you, but to the public.  The coal-lands were withdrawn from entry because men like you and the agents of the Heidlemanns were grabbing it all up.”

O’Neil shook his head, frowning.  “That’s what the papers say, but it isn’t true.  There are twenty million acres of coal in Alaska, and not more than thirty thousand acres have been located.  The law gave me the right to locate and buy coal claims, and I took advantage of it.  Now it tells me that I have money enough, and takes back what it gave.  If it did the right thing it would grant patents to those who located under the law as it then existed and withdraw the rest of the land from entry if advisable.  This country needs two things to make it prosper—­transportation and fuel.  We are doing our best to supply the first in spite of hindrance from Washington; but the fuel has been locked away from us as if behind stone walls.  Rich men must be brave to risk their dollars here under existing conditions, for they are not permitted to utilize the mines, the timber, or the water-power, except upon absurd and unreasonable terms.  Why, I’ve seen timber lying four layers deep and rotting where it lies.  The Government won’t save it, nor will it allow us to do so.  That’s been its policy throughout.  It is strangling industry and dedicating Alaska to eternal solitude.  Railroads are the keys by which this realm can be unlocked; coal is the strength by which those keys can be turned.  The keys are fitted to the lock, but our fingers are paralyzed.  For eight years Alaska’s greatest wealth has lain exposed to view, but the Government has posted the warning, ‘Hands off!  Some one among you is a crook!’ Meanwhile the law has been suspended, the country has stagnated, men have left dispirited or broken, towns have been abandoned.  The cost in dollars to me, for instance, has been tremendous.  I’m laying my track