And he was right. There was another battle underground, in which more of the Apex men were scalded, and the Perch men unhurt. Then the Apex men refused to work, and the mine closed. Gregory was shot at on the following night, and Joshua Mann was slightly wounded. Both the Perch and Primo men tumbled out of bed, hunted down the offenders, and chased them into Pony, riddling the air with shot and rending it with bloodthirsty yells. It would be some time before Apex would be able to hire miners of any nationality willing to trust themselves between the two belligerent camps. But bohunks--more recent importations--would return in the future, if any. These ignorant and friendless South Europeans can be killed for about two hundred dollars apiece, whereas it costs several thousands to kill an American, Cornishman, or Irishman, as he leaves behind him an equally intelligent family or friends. It was unlikely, in any case, that high class miners would “take a job” in the predatory Apex. They not only liked Gregory Compton because he was his own manager and worshipped by his miners, but because he possessed in overflowing measure the two qualities that the American in his heart of hearts respects most, luck and bluff. Amalgamated immediately brought suit against Gregory Compton, charging not only that the faulted vein apexed in their claim, but that his original patent was agricultural and gave him no lateral rights in mining; furthermore, that a patented claim could not be repatented. This was a fine legal point and could impoverish several generations before it was decided. Gregory paid no attention to this suit beyond issuing an invitation through the press to eight of the leading geologists of the United States and Canada to come to Montana at his expense and make a personal inspection of the two veins. If they did not agree that the vein on which he had been working, containing a shoot of chalcopyrite six feet wide, and of the highest grade, was the original vein, and the Primo-Apex a mere stringer, or at most a fork from his, he would let the suit go by default. The geologists promptly accepted, and it was agreed that they should all arrive in Butte on the second of June.