“Matters came swiftly to a head when we came on the scene and started to build a paper mill. The acute paper shortage had most to do with it. The government, tired of bickering and of the North Star’s professional lobbyists, suddenly announced that it was going to throw the Nannabijou Limits open for tender, and that the limits would be leased to the highest bidder simultaneously contracting to manufacture exclusively in Kam City and have a paper mill with a capacity of three hundred and fifty tons of paper a day in full operation by October the twenty-third of this present year.
“It was a drastic contract, so drastic that only the serious paper famine threatening would excuse any government for creating it.
“Along with other Canadian associates holding stock in the International Investment Corporation, I went down to New York to consult Norman Gildersleeve, the president, about it. Gildersleeve went thoroughly into the cruisers’ reports and the terms of the government agreement, and, to our surprise, almost immediately decided we should make a bid for the limits under all the terms laid down. We had part of the machinery on order for some time which would equip just such a modern mill as was required, he pointed out, and the only problem that confronted us was the securing of tugs and loading machinery for handling the poles between the limits and the mill.
“Just what I expected took place. Immediately the North Star got busy building a paper mill on a site in Kam City, and they put in a tender for the limits simultaneously with ours.
“The North Star Company were the successful tenderers. They were granted a year’s cutting rights with the privilege of renewing at the same figures provided they had commenced installing their machinery by June and were in full operation by October. Gildersleeve was not the least taken back. He said he expected it, but he told us to wait and see. You remember what happened. The North Star had no machinery to install in their mill by June. Gildersleeve and his associates put the skids under them by manipulating the market so that the United States plant manufacturing the North Star’s paper-making machinery went into bankruptcy and our people gaining control of it held the machinery. That left the North Star nicely in the air. There wasn’t another manufacturer could guarantee the construction of the machinery required in less than twenty-seven months’ time, partially on account of the scarcity of steel at that time.
“The Hon. J. J. Slack and his bevy of lawyers moved heaven and earth to get the time extended to two years and six months, but the government stood pat. Our original tender was accepted to date from the expiration of the North Star’s on October the twenty-third and we were to be given possession of all wood cut by the North Star this season on the Nannabijou. To appease the powerful North Star Company, however, the government inserted a rider in the agreement that should we fail in any particular of our contract, even through unforeseen accident, our lease on the limits would be automatically cancelled and that of the North Star would be immediately reinstated with an extension of time for the installation of their machinery.
“Then followed our fight against the eleventh hour inclusion of that drastic rider. It was all to no avail. The government, having satisfied the public that they meant business in getting the limits developed and a paper mill built, were prepared to wash their hands of the whole affair. We were as much as told we could either take it or leave it, as we pleased.
“Now then, Winch,” concluded Duff, “in the face of the North Star’s immediate willingness to act as contractor for us in getting out the poles on time when they could otherwise have left us in a mighty awkward fix for tugs, can’t you see that they have but one aim in this whole business?”
“You mean that—?”
“They have some definite plan for putting it over us so that we can’t live up to the terms of our agreement with the government.”