“I am quite well aware of all that,” discounted the president of the Kam City Pulp and Paper Mills, “and if Norman Gildersleeve were in the offing somewhere, or even if I knew exactly the plans he had in the back of his head when he approved of our agreement with the Ontario government and thereby agreed to the cutting and delivering contract on the part of the North Star Company I shouldn’t waste a moment’s worry over matters.
“I wouldn’t mind the responsibility of taking full charge of affairs,” he emphasised, “if I had a notion of Gildersleeve’s preconceived plans for meeting possible trickery on the part of the North Star; but Gildersleeve, apparently, took nobody into his confidence on that score.”
“But so far the North Star Company have not shown any tendency to violate the terms of the government fiat imposed on them,” argued the lawyer. “In fact, I understand they have now almost the required amount of poles boomed in Nannabijou Bay ready for delivery to the mill. To my way of thinking, outside of the unfortunate disappearance of Mr. Gildersleeve, everything looks exceedingly rosy.”
“That’s just it,” stormed Duff. “Everything looks rosy—too damned rosy!” He slammed his badly mangled cigar into a nearby waste-basket. “Everything looks too damned rosy to be of good omen where such notorious pirates as the North Star Towing and Contracting Company are concerned. Winch, are you conscious of the fact that the North Star has smashed and utterly ruined every commercial enterprise that has attempted to enter into competition with them in the North?”
“Oh, well—circumstances alter cases,” hedged the lawyer. “Things are different—”
“Of course they’re different,” derided Duff. “The North Star never tackles two swindling campaigns with the same methods or their victims would learn to plan successful counter attacks. Look you, Winch, I’ve been delving a bit into local history just for the very purpose of studying these people and their methods. Through political manipulation, bribery, legal trickery and downright commercial theft and robbery, when they could get away with it, they have utterly destroyed every enterprise that has threatened to interfere with their exclusive exploitation of the resources of this northern country.”
“I’ll admit they’ve been unscrupulous—brazenly unscrupulous and aggressive,” quietly returned the man of the law, “but I think you exaggerate somewhat, Mr. Duff. I could name you a dozen concerns competitive of the North Star Company that have thrived for years without interference.”
“All small-fry concerns,” pointed out the other. “The North Star’s apparent policy has been to let the little fellows alone—even nurse them financially at times with an end in view; it finds them useful allies when there’s government lobbying afoot or a big political coup to be pulled off.
“But tell me,” he went on, “what’s been the fate of every enterprise of dimensions that has attempted to exist within the zone of the North Star’s activities? Wasn’t the Upper Lakes Towing and Salvaging Company at one time the most flourishing marine concern on Lake Superior? What did the North Star do to them? Swept them from the North Shore till they hadn’t a propeller turning between here and the Soo. What happened the Independent Fur Trading Company that once held exclusive trading treaties with the Indians all the way north to the Bay Company’s boundaries? The North Star weaned their business away from them by selling the Indians alleged cough medicine that was five per cent pure alcohol and drove them out paupers. Where is the Oliphant Transfer Ship Company that enjoyed practically all the marine switching business in northern harbours? They’ve been supplanted by the Kam City Leg-boat Corporation, subsidiary to the North Star. Who’s behind the All-West Trading and Storage Limited that ousted the Dominion Grain Dealers and grabbed off all their elevators between here and The Hat? It’s the North Star—everybody knows that.
“Yes, I could go on enumerating until it sounded like a book of epitaphs from a commercial graveyard,” continued Duff. “The North Star did not pay thirty cents on the dollar of value for the business of any one of the unfortunate concerns it squelched out and absorbed. It was all accomplished by business buccaneering methods unparalleled on this continent for audacity and cunning. In every case, so far as I can learn, it was a totally unexpected coup, swift and certain as lightning, that crumpled up the North Star’s rivals.