New York seemed strange to Brent for several days after his arrival. Life itself impressed him as unnatural and unreal. More than once he became suspicious that memory was playing him a trick, and he half felt that he ought not himself to believe the story of the last half-year, a story he was sure nobody else would credit on the security of his mere assertion. Resolved as he was not to share his secret, he was a little puzzled at first as to the best practical course for turning his present resources into available cash. After making some general inquiries, he decided that the most direct method would be best. He would take his boxes of gold to the Mint, have the metal coined under the terms of the Free Coinage of Gold Act, and make no explanations to anybody. He presumed that so large a deposit of virgin gold might cause some comment at the Mint, but the sum was not great enough to be of general business importance and there seemed to be no reason for fearing any widespread curiosity or inquiry. He hired for a month a small room in the basement of an office building in one of the less busy down-town streets. His twenty small, amazingly heavy boxes were safely stored there within a week of his arrival in the city. He then undertook the tedious and by no means easy task of separating the gold from the covering of sand with which he had disguised it. He did this in order that he might meet the requirements of the Mint and offer only the clean and pure metal. He grew heartily tired of the job before he had finished it, for it occupied him several hours daily for a full fortnight. At last it was completed and the cases were shipped to Philadelphia. Brent went with them. He had them transferred from the express car to a truck, got into the wagon himself and with two or three truckmen drove to the Mint. He was directed to the proper department for the reception of gold bullion, and he asked the clerk in charge where he should deliver a quantity of gold for coinage. “I will take it here,” responded the functionary. “It is outside in a wagon; shall I have it brought in here?” asked Brent. The reply was in the affirmative, and in a few moments two brawny men staggered in with a small box between them. The clerk seemed much surprised by the great weight of the burden, and remarked with interest that it was evidently a very valuable ingot. “Have we got to bring ’em all in this way?” inquired one of the truckmen, wiping his forehead. “Are there any more?” asked the clerk in surprise. “Yes, twenty of them, and they weigh four hundred pounds apiece, if an ounce.” The Mint official dropped his routine, red-tape manner and became a very much astonished man. “Do these boxes contain pure gold?” he exclaimed, turning to Brent. “Yes, I believe so,” was that individual’s matter-of-fact reply. “There are about four tons of it.”