big notion. And the notion is to drive the Skandinavians out of
Canada's pulp trade, and very particularly the Swedes, as represented by
the interests of Nathaniel Hellbeam. Guess you sit right here in New
York, but up there they've got you measured up to the last pant's
button."

"They that think?"

The financier's bloated cheeks purpled as he put his clumsy
interrogation.

"Oh, yes. This feller Standing reckons he's made a big start, and there
are mighty big plans out. When he and that clownish partner of his,
Harker, are through, Sachigo'll be the biggest proposition in the way of
groundwood pulp in the world. They've forests such as you in Skandinavia
dream about when your digestion's feeling good. They've a water power
that leaves Niagara a summer trickle. They've got it all with a sea
journey of less than eighteen hundred miles to Europe. But there's more
than that. When Sachigo's complete it's to be the parent company of a
mighty combine that's going to take in all the mills of Canada outside
Nathaniel Hellbeam's group. And then--then, sir, the squeeze'll start
right in. And it isn't going to stop till the sponge--that's Nathaniel
Hellbeam--is wrung dry."

"You heard all this--when you were held prisoner and working like a
swine in Martin's forests?"

The smile in Hellbeam's eyes was no less ironical than the agent's.

"When I was working like a swine."

"These lumber-jacks. They knew all that in Standing's mind is?"

"No. But I learned it all."

"How?"

The demand was instant, and a surge of force lay behind it.

"Because some I saw. Some I picked up from general talk. And the rest I
pieced together because it's my job to think hard when the game's
against me. But it don't matter. You know that the things I've told you
are right. It's news to you, but you know it's right, because you're
thinking hard, and the game's against--you."

"Yes."

The financier's admission was the act of a man who has no hesitation in
looking facts in the face and acknowledging them. Idepski's deductions
were irrefutable, because the Swede was a shrewd business man with a
full appreciation of the man who had lightened his finances by ten
million dollars.

For some moments the fleshy face was turned towards the window which
yielded the hum of busy traffic many stories below them. His narrow eyes
were earnestly reflective, but there was no concern in them. To the
waiting man he was simply measuring the threat against hi