t to be pitted against us in the very country we were holding. I
could see that Brokaw was tremendously worked up when he wrote the
letter, and that for once he felt 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
about that condition of unrest and antagonism between the people of the
north and ourselves which would compel the government to take away our
license. Remember, this license was only provisional. It was, in fact,
left to the people of the north to decide whether we should remain
among them or not. If they turned against us there would be only one
thing for the government to do.

"At first Brokaw's letter caused me no very great uneasiness. I knew
the people up here. I knew that the Indian, the Breed, the Frenchman,
and the White of this God's country were as invulnerable to bribery as
Brokaw himself is 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 the open streets. I felt myself warming
with indignation as I replied to Brokaw, resenting his insinuations as
to the crimes which a 'half-savage' people might be induced to commit
for a little whisky and a little money. And then--"

Whittemore wiped his face. The lines settled deeper about his mouth.

"Greggy, a week after I received this letter two warehouses were burned
on the same night at Blind Indian Lake. They were three hundred yards
apart. There is absolutely no doubt that it was incendiarism."

He waited in silence, but Gregson still sat watching him in silence.

"That was the beginning--three months ago. Since then some mysterious
force has been fighting us at every step. A week after the warehouses
burned, a dredge and boat-building yard, which we had constructed at
considerable expense at the mouth of the Gray Beaver, was destroyed by
fire. A little later a 'premature' explosion of dynamite cost us ten
thousand dollars and two weeks' labor of fifty men. I organized a
special guard service, composed of fifty of my best men, but it seemed
to do no good. S