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 remorse and failure, and yet had laid upon him the task of saving the children? Well, he had saved the children. He had defeated the spell of poverty and starvation. He had done it all alone—or perhaps helped by the devil. Who cared? He had done it, betrayed as he was, saving by the same stroke the San Tome" mine, which appeared to him hateful and immense, lording it by its vast wealth over the valor, the toil, the fidelity of the poor, over war and peace, over the labors of the town, the sea, and the Campo.

The sun lit up the sky behind the peaks of the Cordillera. The capataz looked down for a time upon the fall of loose earth, stones, and smashed bushes concealing the hiding-place of the silver.

"I must grow rich very slowly," he meditated aloud.