Flower of the North

orth without speaking. Then he stopped, a

sing than in development work. Hundreds of thousands of copies of my letters from the north, filled to the brim with the enthusiasm I had felt for my work and projects, had been sent out broadcast, luring buyers of stock. In one of these letters I had said that if a half of the lakes I had mapped out were fished the north could be made to produce a million tons of fish a year. Two hundred thousand copies of this letter were sent out, but Brokaw and his associates had omitted the words, 'If a half of the lakes mapped out were fished.' It would take fifteen thousand men, a thousand refrigerator cars, and a capital of five million to bring this about. I was stunned by the enormity of their fraud, and yet when I threatened to bring the whole thing to smash Brokaw only laughed and pointed out that not a single caution had been omitted. In all of the advertising it was frankly stated that our license was provisional, subject to with

ce that he turned to Gregson was damp with

d in," sai

n and a quarter of stock-but in the end there would have to be an accounting. If I was out of the game it would be easily made. If I was in-well, do you see, Greggy? There was still a chance of making the company win out as a legitimate enterprise, even though it began under the black flag of piratical finance and fraud. Brokaw and the others were astonished at the stand I took. It was like throwing a big, ripe plum into the fire Brokaw was the first to hedge. He came over to my side in a private 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 partia

d until the blue veins stood

nd

spoke, u

d w

relaxed their g

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 L

t himself outwitted by a rival faction, and realized to the full a danger which it took me some time to comprehend. He had discovered absolute evidence, he said, that the bunch of trust capitalists whom he had beaten were about to attack us in another way. Their forces were already moving into the north country. Their object was to stir up the country against us, to bring abo

to the pangs of conscience. I loved them. I had faith in them. I knew them to possess an honor which is not known down there, where we have a church on every four corners, and where the Word of God is preached day and night on t

ace. The lines settled

ned on the same night at Blind Indian Lake. They were three hundred

but Gregson still sat

a ridge near our right of way. Whoever our enemies are, they seem to know our most secret movements, and attack us whenever we leave a vulnerable point open. The most surprising part of the whole affair is this: in spite of my own efforts to keep our losses quiet the rumor has spread for hundreds of miles around us, even reaching Churchill, that the northerners have declared war against our enterprise and are determined to drive us out. Two-thirds of my men believe this. MacDougall, my engineer, believes it. Between my working forces and the Indians, French, and half-breeds about us there has slowly developed a feeling of suspicion and resentment. It is growing-every day, every h

the grim hardness that had settled in it. He unfolded

me way it was mixed in my mail and I did not discover the error until I had opened it. It is fro

ther's fingers as he turned from the first sheet to the second; he watched Gregson's face, the slow ebbing of colo

d!" he b

men gazed at each other acros