The next issue of the Kusiak "Sun" contained a bitter editorial attack
upon Elliot. The occasion for it was a press dispatch from Washington to
the effect that the pressure of public opinion had become so strong that
Winton, Commissioner of the General Land Office, might be forced to
resign his place. This was a blow to the coal claimants, and the "Sun"
charged in vitriolic language that the reports of Elliot were to blame.
He was, the newspaper claimed, an enemy to all those who had come to
Alaska to earn an honest living there. Under indictment for attempted
murder and for highway robbery, this man was not satisfied with having
tried to kill from ambush the best friend Alaska had ever known. In
every report that he sent to Washington he was dealing underhanded blows
at the prosperity of Alaska. He was a snake in the grass, and as such
every decent man ought to hold him in scorn.
Elliot read this just as he was leaving for the Willow Creek Camp.
He thrust the paper impatiently into his coat pocket and swung to the
saddle. Why did they persecute him? He had told nothing but the truth,
nothing not required of him by the simplest, elemental honesty. Yet he
was treated as an outcast and a criminal.
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