Next morning the events of the previous evening all seemed to Hammond like a hazy dream. Only the sealed letter from Gildersleeve to Hon. J. J. Slack, M.P., president of the North Star Towing and Contracting Company, smacked of tangibility, for he saw nothing further of Gildersleeve, the girl with the high-arched eyebrows or even the U.S. consul, Eulas Daly. His sense of good form prevented him from prowling back through the compartment coach, and he was really pressed for time to dress and breakfast before the train pulled into Kam City.

His first experience was a disappointment. At the head office of the North Star Company he was informed that Hon. J. J. Slack was away at the Dominion capital on business, but would possibly be back before noon of the following day. He had therefore a wait of two days in the lakeport city.

Hammond improved his time by paying a visit to the sites of two enormous pulp and paper mills under course of construction near the water front. There was a curious rivalry of big interests told of there. The young man was the more interested on learning that one of these plants, the Kam City Pulp and Paper mill, was to derive its supply of pulp poles almost exclusively from the Nannabijou Limits, the largest in all the North, a government block on which the Kam City Company had secured conditional rights to the timber that very summer after a long legal battle with competitors and the signing of a hard and fast agreement with the Ontario government that their mill must be running to full capacity, manufacturing paper from wood cut on the Nannabijou Limits by October the twenty-third of that very year. In case they were not in a position to do so from any cause whatsoever they stood to lose all rights to the timber.

The stories which Hammond gained from various sources regarding this situation were conflicting and at best rather incoherent. Out of it all he gathered that it was the result of a war between two highly capitalised organisations to gain the supremacy. It seemed that originally both the North Star Company and the Kam City Company were applicants for the cutting rights on the Nannabijou, and because a pledge had been made by the government during an election campaign that not one pole might be cut and carried away from the limits unless it were manufactured into paper in Kam City, both companies, to prove their good faith, had purchased sites in Kam City and had started the building of their mills before their applications went in. The North Star Company was finally awarded the rights to the limits on an explicit agreement that they were to have their mill in full operation the following October. There was an additional stipulation that in order to renew their yearly rights on October the twenty-third they must commence the installation of their machinery by June the first. This latter clause, it was said, was added because of the North Star’s reputation for trickery, the government being determined that whoever cut the poles on the Nannabijou must be making paper from them on the specified date, October the twenty-third.

The North Star had immediately commenced cutting operations on the limits. The construction of their mill too was rushed, but June rolled around without them having received any machinery to install in it. On the other hand, the Kam City Company, who had gone on with their mill just the same as if they held the contract, were getting their machinery on the ground and had actually commenced the installation of some of it. The Kam City Company immediately made a second application for the cutting rights on the limits, claiming that the North Star Company had forfeited theirs through non-performance of contract. Then there ensued a battle royal in the courts and before the legislature.

There were weeks of lobbying, during which Slack, the president of the North Star, and a bevy of lawyers representing that company endeavoured to hold the cutting rights and gain an extension of time till the North Star completed their mill, making the claim, which may or may not have been true, that they could not secure delivery of the paper-making machinery on order on account of the steel famine which then existed. But the provincial government obstinately stood out for the terms of the agreement. Slack was seeking to bring higher political pressure to bear from Ottawa when the Kam City Company’s application was granted, their cutting rights to obtain from the date the North Star’s expired, October twenty-third, conditional that their mill should be in full operation on that date. In order that they might have wood to grind, an additional fiat was issued constraining the North Star to make delivery of their cut on the limits to the mill of the Kam City Company, at a price to be fixed by a commission, in sufficient time for the latter to commence operations, and in sufficient quantities to keep the said mills running during the subsequent winter months. On the twenty-third, the North Star were to surrender the limits to the Kam City organisation.Then a strange thing happened. The North Star Company suddenly changed their tactics, bowed to the decree of the government and withdrew all their suits in the courts of law. Almost simultaneously, a number of members, who were known to be under the thumb of the North Star, brought down a rider to be inserted in the agreement with the Kam City Company to the effect that if the latter company, for any cause whatsoever, failed to have their mill in full operation by October the twenty-third and every prospect of continuous operation from then on, their rights should be cancelled and the same rights revert to the original holders, the North Star Company, the latter in such a case to get an extension of time for the installation of their machinery at their mill.

The Kam City Company’s lawyers made a brilliant battle for relief from this rider, which, they pointed out, would nullify their hard-won rights in case of unforeseen exigencies or accident. The North Star’s representatives pointed out that the North Star Company had had their rights cancelled on this very basis, and what had been considered fair treatment of one company should be fair to another. The government, tired of haggling and secretly fearing to further antagonise the powerful North Star Company, made the rider law which the Kam City Company must agree to live up to.

Thus was brought about the curious situation wherein the North Star Company, with a mill of their own practically completed except for the installation of machinery, were forced to cut and deliver wood from the Nannabijou for their rival. On the other hand, the Kam City Company had also to accept this system for the time being whether they liked it or not. It was obvious that they did so because they could not help themselves; they had to have millions of poles ready for immediate delivery at their city docks in time to live up to their agreement, and the North Star Company owned all the available tugs and machinery so necessary to rush the poles to the mill site.

For once it was believed that a coup had been put over on the wily North Star Company, but they took their medicine without murmur, and not only went on with the cutting and booming of poles at the limits as before, but rushed the completion of their huge pulp mill building. People wondered what they hoped to do with it, because the Nannabijou Limits now secured by the Kam City Company would give the latter the full advantage in paper-making competition, not only because they were by far the largest limits in the North, but because they were drained by the mighty Nannabijou River and its tributaries, simplifying the matter of transporting the poles to the lake-front from far inland. It was true that three other limits on the North Shore were controlled by companies believed to be subsidiaries of the North Star, but they were infinitely small in area compared with the Nannabijou forests.

At any rate, the two big pulp and paper mills were on their way and Kam City was getting the benefit of construction work that would total somewhere in the neighbourhood of six or seven million dollars, and the public, as usual, was mostly concerned with the wealth immediately in sight.

II

Hammond incidentally gathered from what he heard here and there that Hon. J. J. Slack, M.P., president of the North Star Company, was a big man in Kam City, but he also discovered a general impression abroad that he was really a figure-head—that his every move in the commercial world was dictated by a power behind, mysterious as it was ingenious and powerful. Even the policies which he espoused in the House of Commons were attributed to master minds somewhere back of the scenes. No one had ever been able to place a finger on the source of his inspiration, but wiseacre socialist leaders maintained it was that much-abused, vague quantity known as “the big interests,” and the mob were contented to accept it as a good enough theory.

Hon. J. J. Slack, M.P., who held a place in the cabinet at Ottawa without portfolio, it seemed, was a tricky politician, a hail fellow and well met—and nothing more. Before his election to the Commons he was a struggling barrister whose battle for a mere existence was a case of Greek meet Greek; afterwards, he suddenly blossomed forth as president of the North Star Towing and Contracting Company, which those on the inside claimed was the parent of some twenty-seven flourishing subsidiary enterprises, including a fleet of grain-carrying freighters on the upper lakes, a grain storage trust operating elevators half way across the continent, a fur-trading company that had gradually dominated the adjacent districts to the exclusion of all rivals and a string of powerful newspapers in various cities and towns all the way from the head of the great lakes to the Pacific coast.

The North Star Towing and Contracting Company and its leading subsidiaries had at one time and another been accused of the boldest commercial piracies, gigantic briberies and glaring steals. If there was a big campaign “barrel” in evidence during an election it was usually set down as North Star money—and always, it seemed, the men the North Star backed had the most votes when the ballot counting was over. But never did the North Star Company or its satellites appear in the courts of law as defendants or face a commission of inquiry. There were settlements of a quiet nature—if there had to be. They wielded a long arm of retribution when their self-appropriated privileges were interfered with—wielded it with such cunning and far-reaching effect that even powerful rival corporations and high government officials learned, not without cost to themselves at times, it was the better part of wisdom not to stand in their way.

Whose money financed this sinister business only the company’s bankers knew, and what they knew they did not tell. The business seemed in some mysterious manner to run itself—so successfully that it reached out and dominated what it pleased, with an uncanny penchant for stamping out rivals and smashing all opposition in its path. Its progress and expansion had a certainty and a swiftness of a thing on the tables of destiny. Its sub-managers were all reputed to be clever rogues, deliberately chosen because past performances had given proof that a working conscience was the least of their moral burdens. Strange to say, none of them had even been known to double-cross the North Star subsidiary for which he worked. Perhaps this, in a sense, was due to a knowledge that nowhere else could they secure positions so lucrative or power of a kind such as they wielded under Slack. But more likely there was a deeper reason; a sense of an unseen guiding mind whom none could name but all felt—a power in the background that could make and unmake, could create and destroy at its pleasure.

Slack’s sudden ascension to command of all the varied industries dominated by the North Star interests was at first lightly taken. Merely a figurehead president appointed for political strategy, every one said. All of which feazed the Hon. J. J. Slack not the least. He went smilingly on his way accumulating millions, quite contented to be under-rated in the matter of personal ability. The executives of the North Star and its subsidiaries soon learned in a quiet but effective manner that Slack’s word was law; that, wherever his counsels might come from, he was at all times clothed with absolute executive authority.

The thing that puzzled the gossiping public was why the North Star Company had been so willing to cut and deliver the poles from the Nannabijou Limits for their hated rival, the Kam City Pulp and Paper Mills. With an almost exclusive monopoly on towing and loading equipment, they could have been almost certain of tying up delivery to the Kam City Company for an indefinite period by simply ceasing operations on the Nannabijou till long-drawn-out action in the courts forced them to abide by what was in a legal sense unprecedented action on the part of the government. Instead, the North Star carried on their cutting and booming as before. By many this was looked on as portentous; the North Star’s quiet submission was too obvious to be natural and without deeper designs, as was also the fact that, though they had not even yet received their machinery, they were going on with the completion of their pulp and paper mill building. But more ominous than any was the editorial silence of the North Star newspapers on this particular question. From the day that the North Star changed its tactics before the government, the newspapers currently believed to be under control of the North Star never again so much as mentioned the matter of the cutting rights on the Nannabijou Limits.

Goose-bone prophets foresaw the utter elimination of the North Star coming. It was a situation analogous to that of a great general ordering his heaviest guns to cease firing and retire at a time when petty strategists conceive that victory could be gained only by continued attack.

III

Hammond saw plainly enough now that through his deal on the train with Norman T. Gildersleeve he had tumbled in a small way into the vortex of big things, and he had a notion that for the next few weeks at least he was not going to suffer from monotony. Gildersleeeve must be in some manner financially interested, but no one with whom Hammond came in contact could throw any light on that phase of the situation. A man named Duff, of Toronto, they said, was president of the Kam City Pulp and Paper Mills, backed by international capital in which American financial interests held control. A man named Norman T. Gildersleeve had at one time been a big factor in the North, but he had long since been driven out of business in Canada by the irrepressible North Star. No, it couldn’t be he—he had surely had enough of “bucking” the North Star.

Hammond was bound to find out, if he could do so without arousing suspicion as to his interest in the matter. Perhaps Slack would drop some hint of Gildersleeve’s identity when he saw him.

But Slack did no such thing. Hammond was among the first to interview the politician on his return from Ottawa.

Hon. J. J. Slack, M.P., was a big man physically, handsome in a plump, comfortable way, urbane and pleasing of address—almost oily. His face registered acute surprise as he sat across the desk from Hammond in his private office reading Gildersleeve’s brief letter of introduction. He actually seemed to be trying to conceal great perturbation, but he made no comment, and to Hammond’s adroitly thrown out feelers for information regarding Gildersleeve he made guarded, unsatisfying replies. All of which is second-nature with a seasoned politician.

He did not call a stenographer, but scrawled out something on a letterhead and sealed it in an official envelope. Then he wrote a couple of words across the face of a card he took from a drawer of his desk and handed both to his visitor.

“I am delighted to comply with Mr. Gildersleeve’s request,” he observed. “In the envelope is a letter of introduction to Mr. A. C. Smith, superintendent for the North Star Company at the Nannabijou Limits, Mr. Hammond. The card is a pass which will take care of your transportation out on any of the tugs leaving our local docks this afternoon.”

He was pleasant and smiling about it, but his abrupt rising from his seat intimated that the interview was at an end. Hammond thanked him for his courtesy and hurried to the dock.

IV

Later that same afternoon a messenger boy entered Slack’s private office and delivered to him a sealed yellow envelope. It contained a marconigram in code, which, after some moments of patient study, Slack deciphered as follows:

Be prepared sensational news. Authorise papers print verbatim all despatches signed Musson. Keep strict watchout and wire explicit details regarding all strangers seeking to get to limits.

(Sgd.) “J.C.X.”

Slack’s fat hands trembled. His face became red and white by turns like one who has been discovered in a grievous blunder. He jabbed excitedly at a push-button to the side of his desk.A lean, bespectacled man with a foxlike face responded from the outer office. “You wanted me, Mr. Slack?”

“Yes, Jackson, send a man to the docks right away,” cried Slack. “Tell him to look up a fellow named Hammond who has a pass out on the tug and bring him back here to me. Tell him to tell Hammond there’s been an oversight and I want to see him right away.”

The fox-faced man craned his neck at the south window of the office. “The tug’s gone, Mr. Slack,” he announced. “She’s a mile out in the lake now.”

Whereat Jackson discreetly withdrew while the Hon. J. J. Slack, M.P., made the air sing with dark, unparliamentary curses.