Like a small stone starting a landslide, you never know where some small act of generosity may lead.

A couple of weeks back, I sent an autographed copy of the leatherbound collector's edition of "The Black Arrow" to Claire Wolfe, a fellow author whose contributions to the freedom movement include "Don't Shoot the Bastards (Yet)" and most recently (with Aaron Zelman of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership) the young people's novel "Rebelfire: Out of the Gray Zone."

It's Christmas time. I wanted to acknowledge Claire's help and support. As an act of generosity, sending off a book that retails at $48.95 was not exactly something to write home about.

As it turns out, Walter Bark, the founding webmaster and guiding spirit of The Claire Files discussion forums has cancer, and is not expected to be with us much longer. Claire reports that, up Montana way, his friends Elias Alias, Basil Fishbone, and Iloilo Jones have been bearing the entire cost of the herbal (and other) medicines that are making Bark's final days tolerable.

Claire e-mailed to ask if I would object to her putting her autographed book up for auction on e-Bay, with the proceeds going to cover some of the costs of Walter's care.

I said fine -- it's her book now, after all. Hers, as well, is all the credit for this generous gesture. I did joke that I'd try to resist the Philistine urge to someday declare that a copy of one of my books had "sold for hundreds of dollars on e-Bay."

We both laughed at that "hundreds of dollars" part. The book went up for bids Wednesday, with an account of the charitable use to which the proceeds would be put, at a starting bid of $19.95, and a reserve of $39.95.

Claire was very pleased when the reserve was reached within hours. She offered to take back her expression of amusement about my "hundreds of dollars" comment when, by suppertime, it hit $305. She proceeded to declare herself "speechless" at around $400, I believe. As I sit down to write this at lunchtime Thursday, bidding has reached $615.

Make no mistake: no one thinks a single copy of this book is worth $615. What's happening is a spontaneous outpouring of generosity, without compulsion, without publicity (well, till now), without any firm guiding hand of government telling anyone how much it's his or her "duty to share."

It's tempting to say we don't know the ending, since the auction doesn't wrap up till Monday.

But in fact, we already know this story has a happy ending. Don't we?

Merry Christmas.

I was asked recently whether I could suggest any new questions that Nevada attorneys might be asked in the judicial retention survey published biennially by the Review-Journal.

I suggested: "Does this judge adequately protect the right and power of jurors, as summarized by Chief Justice John Jay in his jury instructions in Georgia v. Brailsford (1794), when the first chief justice stated, 'You (the jurors) have, nevertheless, a right to take upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy' -- a right further confirmed by Chief Justice Samuel Chase in 1804, Justice Chase writing, 'The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts' -- or does this judge do an inadequate job in this regard, participating with the prosecution in stacking juries that will agree in advance to 'enforce the law as I give it to you,' rather than informing jurors they have the right and power to judge the reasonableness and constitutionality of the underlying statute for themselves? (To confirm that these precedents still apply, see the 1969 ruling of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in U.S. v. Moylan.)"

For those unlikely to look it up, the 4th Circuit ruled, "We recognize, as appellants urge, the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by the judge and contrary to the evidence. ... If the jury feels that the law under which the defendant is accused is unjust ... or for any reason that appeals to their logic or passion, the jury has the power to acquit, and the court must abide by their decision."

I might have added a corroborating excerpt from the ruling of the D.C. Court of Appeals in U.S. v. Dougherty (1972): "The pages of history shine on instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard uncontradicted evidence and instructions from the judge. Most often commended are the 18th century acquittal of John Peter Zenger of seditious libel" (the case that, incidentally, gave Americans our freedom of the press) "and the 19th century acquittals in prosecutions under the fugitive slave laws."

Imagine trying a drug or firearms or tax case before a modern jury selected truly at random. By doing everything in their power to deny, conceal, frustrate and stymie this righteous power of citizen juries to overrule evil or unpopular enactments, today's judges reveal that they have no interest in a just and peaceful land, but rather that they are one more politicized cog in a uniform state apparatus designed to cinch us ever tighter in the girdle of tyranny.