e
interview which we had, and for the first time I convinced him
completely of the tremendous possibilities before us. To my surprise he
began to show actual enthusiasm in my favor. We figured out how the
company, if properly developed, could be made to pay a dividend of
fifty cents a share on the stock issued within two years. This, I
thought, would be at least a partial return of the original steal.
Brokaw worked the thing through in his own way. He was authorized to
vote for one of the directors, who was in Europe, and he won over two
of the others. As a consequence we voted all of the money in the
treasury, nearly six hundred thousand dollars, and the remainder of the
stock that was on the market, for development purposes. Brokaw then
made the proposition that the company buy up any interest that wished
to withdraw. The two M. P.'s and a professional promoter from Toronto
immediately sold out at fifty thousand each. With their original
hundred thousand these three retired with an aggregate steal of nearly
half a million. Pretty good work for yours truly, eh, Greggy! Good
Heaven, think of it! I started out to strike a blow, to launch a
gigantic project for the people, and this was what I had hatched!
Robbery, bribery, fraud--"

He paused, his hands clenched until the blue veins stood out on them
like whipcords.

"And--"

Gregson spoke, uneasily.

"And what?"

Philip's fingers relaxed their grip on the table.

"If that had been all, I wouldn't have called you up here," he
continued. "I've taken a long time in coming down to the real hell of
the affair, because I wanted you to understand the situation from the
beginning. After I left Brokaw I came north again. I possessed all the
funds necessary to make an honest working organization out of the
Northern Fish and Development Company. I hired two hundred additional
men, added twenty new fishing-stations, began a second road-bed to the
main line, and started a huge dam at Blind Indian Lake. We had thirty
horses, driven up through the wilderness from Le Pas, and twenty teams
on the way. There didn't appear to be an important obstacle in the path
of our success, and I had recovered most of my old enthusiasm when
Brokaw sprung a new mine under my feet.

"He had written a long letter almost immediately after I left him,
which had been delayed at several places. In it he told me that he had
discovered a plot to wreck our enterprise, that some powerful force was
abou