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 long period of amortization, why—why, Boland General can pay out every obligation and be as rich at the end as it was before the Supreme Court robbed us of all we've been working for."

"It all depends on—on getting the Indians to see reason. They have to do something with this timber; they have to continue the development of their property if it is to pay them a dividend. We're here; we're in position; they might as well arrange with us to go on manufacturing as to try to have someone else do it."

"But Mr. Boland," objected Quackenbaugh, "an Indian don't look at things like a white man. He isn't practical. Revenge—the satisfaction of kicking us all out—might mean more to them than dollars. They are queer, Indians are. Look at that yellow devil, Adam John."

So the discussion went forward in the Boland library, almost till the gray light of the second morning after—a morning which saw many things happen.

It saw the Red Cross come in. It saw Julius Hornblower come in. It saw the Salisheuttes! The Supreme Court had upset Hornblower's claim as it had upset Boland's title; yet it was his suit that had turned the eagle eye of that high court upon the matter, so that in a way he was the author of all this calamity; yet that abashed him nothing—pleased him perhaps. Anyway, vulture-like, bird of evil omen, he came flapping his way back into the debris, knowing it would be strange if he could not make some profit out of so much misery. It was indicative of the general mood that no one paid any attention to Hornblower at all.

But the first spectacular event of this second spectacular day was the return of an entire nation to its