Flower of the North. James Oliver Curwood
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Название: Flower of the North

Автор: James Oliver Curwood

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Языкознание

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isbn: 4064066202552

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СКАЧАТЬ in New York, Boston, or Chicago for a half of what the trust demands. My scheme wasn't aroused entirely by philanthropy, mind you. I saw in it a chance to get back at the very people who brought about my father's ruin, and who kept pounding him after he was in a corner until he broke down and died. They killed him. They robbed me a few years later. They made me hate what I was once, a moving, joyous part of—life down there. I went from the north, first to Ottawa, then to Toronto and Winnipeg. After that I went to Brokaw, my father's old partner, with the scheme. I've told you of Brokaw—one of the deepest, shrewdest old fighters in the Middle West. It was only a year after my father's death that he was on his feet again, as strong as ever. Brokaw drew in two or three others as strong as himself, and we went after the privileges. It was a fight from the beginning. Hardly were our plans made public before we were met by powerful opposition. A combination of Canadian capital quickly organized and petitioned for the same privileges. Old Brokaw knew what it meant. It was the hand of the trust—disguised under a veneer of Canadian promoters. They called us 'aliens'—American 'money-grabbers' robbing Canadians of what justly belonged to them. They aroused two-thirds of the press against us, and yet—"

      The lines in Whittemore's face softened. He chuckled as he pulled out his pipe and began filling it.

      "They had to go some to beat the old man, Greggy. I don't know just how Brokaw pulled the thing off, but I do know that when we won out three members of parliament and half a dozen other politicians were honorary members of our organization, and that it cost Brokaw a hundred thousand dollars! Our opponents had raised such a howl, calling upon the patriotism of the country and pointing out that the people of the north would resent this invasion of foreigners, that we succeeded in getting only a provisional license, subject to withdrawal by the government at any time conditions seemed to warrant it. I saw in this no blow to my scheme, for I was certain that we could carry the thing along on such a square basis that within a year the whole country would be in sympathy with us. I expressed my views with enthusiasm at our final meeting, when the seven of us met to complete our plans. Brokaw and the other five were to direct matters in the south; I was to have full command of affairs in the north. A month later I was at work. Over here"—he leaned over Gregson's shoulder and placed a forefinger on the map—"I established our headquarters, with MacDougall, a Scotch engineer, to help me. Within six months we had a hundred and fifty men at Blind Indian Lake, fifty canoemen bringing in supplies, and another gang putting in stations over a stretch of more than a hundred miles of lake country. Everything was working smoothly, better than I had expected. At Blind Indian Lake we had a shipyard, two warehouses, ice-houses, a company store, and a population of three hundred, and had nearly completed a ten-mile roadbed for narrow-gauge steel, which would connect us with the main line when it came up to us. I was completely lost in my work. At times I almost forgot Brokaw and the others. I was particularly careful of the funds sent up to me, and had accomplished my work at a cost of a little under a hundred thousand. At the end of the six months, when I was about to make a visit into the south, one of our warehouses and ten thousand dollars' worth of supplies went up in smoke. It was our first misfortune, and it was a big one. It was about the first matter that I brought up after I had shaken hands with Brokaw."

      Philip's face was set and white as he stood in the middle of the room looking at Gregson.

      "And what do you think was his reply, Greggy? He looked at me for a moment, a peculiar twitching around the corners of his mouth, and then said, 'Don't allow a trivial matter like that to worry you, Philip. Why—we've already cleaned up a million on this little fish deal!'"

      Gregson sat up with a jerk.

      "A million! Great Scott—"

      "Yes, a million, Greggy," said Philip, softly, with his old fighting smile. "There was a hundred thousand dollars to my credit in a First National Bank. Pleasant surprise, eh?"

      Gregson had dropped his cigarette. His slim hands gripped the edges of the table. He made no reply as he waited for Whittemore to continue.

       Table of Contents

      For a full minute Philip paced back and forth without speaking. Then he stopped, and faced Gregson, who was staring at him.

      "A million, Greggy," he repeated, in the same soft voice. "A hundred thousand dollars to my credit—in a First National Bank! While I was up here hustling to get affairs on a working basis, eager to show the government and the people what we could do and would do, triumphing in our victory over the trust, and figuring each day on my scheme of making this big, rich north deal a staggering blow to those accursed combinations down there, they were at work, too. While I was dreaming and doing these things, Brokaw and the others had formed the Great Northern Fish and Development Company, had incorporated it under the laws of New Jersey, and had already sold over a million dollars' worth of stock! The thing was in full swing when I reached headquarters. I had authorized Brokaw to act for me, and I found that I was vice-president of one of the biggest legalized robbery combinations of recent years. More money had been spent in advertising 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 withdrawal if the company did not keep within laws. That very frankness was an advertisement. It was something different. It struck home where it was meant to strike—among small and unfledged investors. It roped them in by thousands. The shares were ten dollars each, and non-assessable. Five out of six orders were from one to five shares; ninety-nine out of every hundred were not above ten shares. It was damnable. The very people for whom I wanted the north to fight had been humbugged to the tune of a million and a quarter dollars. Within a year Brokaw and the others had floated a scheme which was worse than any trust, for the trusts pay back a part of their steals in dividends. And I was responsible! Do you realize that, Greggy? It was I who started the project. It was my reports from the north which chiefly induced people to buy. And this company—a company of robbers licensed under the law—I am its founder and its vice-president!"

      Philip dropped back into his chair. The face that he turned to Gregson was damp with perspiration, though the room was chilly.

      "You stayed in," said Gregson.

      "I had to. There wasn't a loophole left open to me. There wasn't a single point at which I could bring attack against Brokaw and the others. They were six veritable Bismarcks of deviltry and shrewdness. They hadn't over-stepped the law. They had sold a million and a quarter of stock on a hundred-thousand-dollar investment, but Brokaw only laughed when I raged at this. 'Why, Philip,' he said, 'we value our license alone at over a million!' And there was no law which could prevent them from placing that value upon it, or more. There was one thing that I could do—and only one. I could resign, decline to accept my stock and the hundred thousand, and publicly announce why I had broken off my connections with the company. I was about to do this when cooler judgment prevailed. It occurred to me that there would have to be an accounting. The company might sell a million 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 СКАЧАТЬ