I-XV

Otto Fuchs got back from Black Hawk at
noon the next day. He reported that the cor-
oner would reach the Shimerdas' sometime
that afternoon, but the missionary priest was
at the other end of his parish, a hundred miles
away, and the trains were not running. Fuchs
had got a few hours' sleep at the livery barn in
town, but he was afraid the gray gelding had
strained himself. Indeed, he was never the
same horse afterward. That long trip through
the deep snow had taken all the endurance
out of him.

Fuchs brought home with him a stranger, a
young Bohemian who had taken a homestead
near Black Hawk, and who came on his only
horse to help his fellow-countrymen in their
trouble. That was the first time I ever saw
Anton Jelinek. He was a strapping young
fellow in the early twenties then, handsome,
warm-hearted, and full of life, and he came to
us like a miracle in the midst of that grim
business. I remember exactly how he strode
into our kitchen in his felt boots and long wolf-

[[119]]

p118 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p119w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p120

v?