CHAPTER X
WHAT CAME TO SLAVIN
Billy Breen's legacy to the Black Rock mining camp was a new League,
which was more than the old League re-made. The League was new in its
spirit and in its methods. The impression made upon the camp by Billy
Breen's death was very remarkable, and I have never been quite able to
account for it. The mood of the community at the time was peculiarly
susceptible. Billy was one of the oldest of the old-timers. His decline
and fall had been a long process, and his struggle for life and manhood
was striking enough to arrest the attention and awaken the sympathy of
the whole camp. We instinctively side with a man in his struggle for
freedom; for we feel that freedom is native to him and to us. The sudden
collapse of the struggle stirred the men with a deep pity for the beaten
man, and a deep contempt for those who had tricked him to his doom. But
though the pity and the contempt remained, the gloom was relieved and
the sense of defeat removed from the men's minds by the transforming
glory of Billy's last hour.
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