“What you may not know,” continued the other, “is that a former Canadian company, of which I was the head, was behind many of the rival enterprises which tried to fight the North Star in this country, and failed. In fact, we, the pioneers in development work on the North Shore, were actually driven out by the North Star, whose crafty, underhand methods and strange power over the ruling authorities in government circles made it impossible to meet them in a fair fight. I was a heavy loser through those ventures, and, I may tell you that millions are at stake in this present undertaking projected to break the backbone of the slimy North Star outfit.
“But we got the edge on them this time from the start—and we intend to keep it. Nevertheless, I had no illusions as to the intentions of the North Star since the screws were put down tight on them by the new provincial government. I knew if there were a loop-hole through which they could slip to prevent delivery of poles to our mill in time to allow of operation on the date fixed in our agreement with the government that they would take full advantage of it.
“Early last June I placed several secret agents in one guise and another in the North Star’s camps, keeping close tab on operations and sending in regular reports. They could discover no grounds for suspecting trickery, however, except that the superintendent, A. C. Smith, was inaccessible and his comings and goings in the camp were as mysterious as the man himself.
“Then one day, toward the latter end of the summer, all our secret agents, who had secured positions as clerks, cookees and lumberjacks, were summarily dismissed and given twenty-four hours to get off the limits—all with the exception of an expert ex-secret service man from Chicago, Arnold by name, who kept his place in the camp as a consumptive landscape artist. Arnold made the discovery that there was some secret rendezvous up in the hill known as the Cup of Nannabijou, to which he was convinced Acey Smith repaired, though he was never able to trace him there. He further had a theory that the unknown powers behind the North Star were kept in touch with affairs through a wireless plant secreted in the Cup.
“That was the last report we received from Arnold. News afterward appeared in the papers that Arnold’s hat had been found floating in a creek up on the hill, and it was surmised that he had fallen into the rapids of the creek and was dashed to death.
“Arnold, however, eventually turned up, alive, in Chicago, and later came to my office in New York. The truth of the matter was he had been waylaid on the banks of the creek, overpowered and drugged while he was endeavouring to find the entrance to the Cup. He recovered consciousness in the room of a waterfront hotel in this city, where he found on the dresser a parcel and a bulky envelope. The parcel contained the loose cash he had in his pockets when attacked, his watch, fountain pen and a new hat similar to the one that fell off his head into the creek during his struggle with unknown assailants. In the envelope were all the pencilled notes he had made and secreted under the floor of his shack, and under the envelope he found a railway time-table with the connections between Kam City and Chicago under-scored. Arnold was quite fed up with the way they did things in Canada, and he took the obvious hint.
“All this made it the more imperative that I place some one on the limits who could get to the bottom of what coup the North Star was planning. I decided to come North myself to keep in close touch. In order to put our rivals and their spies off the scent and lend them a false notion of security, I planned to suddenly disappear off the train before it reached Kam City. Winch was not to discover this until the following morning and then see that my remarkable disappearance was given the widest possible publicity in the newspapers.
“It was while on the way to Kam City that I was impressed with the advantages of having a foil for the camp preacher in his work—some one whose entrance into the camps at about the same time as himself would arouse Acey Smith’s curiosity and suspicion and keep him for a time off the right track. I talked the plan over with Winch, and the result was we engaged you.
“Now there was no absolute certainty that Slack would take any cognizance of my request to find you a job on the limits, and possibly less that Acey Smith would take you on, even if he did, but I built on their curiosity being so aroused that they would employ you just to get at the bottom of what you were sent there for. Your entire ignorance of any definite object on the limits would, I conjectured, further baffle Smith. In the meantime, while his suspicions were focussed on you, Stubbs was to get in his good work. The result up to the time of your leaving the limits and Stubbs’ arrest was eminently satisfactory.”
“You think my leaving precipitated Stubbs into trouble then?” asked Hammond.