"I don't. Judge for yourself. The law offers every citizen the chance--in fact, it invites him--to go upon the public domain and search for treasure. If he is successful it permits him to locate the land in blocks, and it agrees to grant him a clear title after he does a certain amount of work and pays a fixed price. Further, it says in effect: 'Realizing that you may need financial assistance in this work, we will allow you to locate not only for yourself, but also for your friends, through their powers of attorney, and thus gain their co-operation for your mutual advantage. These are the rules, and they are binding upon all parties to this agreement; you keep your part, we will keep ours.' Now then, some pioneers, at risk of life and health, came to Kyak and found coal. They located it, they did all the law required them 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 The coal-lands were withdrawn from entry because men like you and the agents of the Heidlemanns were grabbing it all up."