"Eileen is resting. It's been a hard trip on her, Phil, and she hasn't slept for two consecutive nights since we left Halifax."
Philip's keen glance told him that Brokaw himself had not slept much. The promoter's eyes were heavy, with little puffy bags under them. But otherwise he betrayed no signs of unrest or lack of rest. He motioned Philip to a chair close to a huge fireplace in which a pile of birch was leaping into flame, offered him a cigar, and plunged immediately into business.
"It's hell, Philip," he said, in a hard, quiet voice, as though he were restraining an outburst of passion with effort. "In another three months we'd have been on a working basis, earning dividends. I've even gone to the point of making contracts that show us five hundred per cent, profit. And now—this!"
He dashed his half-burned cigar into the fire, and viciously bit the end from another.
Philip was lighting his own, and there was a moment's silence, broken sharply by the financier.
"Are your men prepared to fight?"
"If it's necessary," replied Philip. "We can at least depend upon a part of them, especially the men at Blind Indian Lake. But—this fighting—Why do you think it will come to that? If there is fighting we are ruined."
"If the people rise against us in a body—yes, we are ruined. That is what we must not permit. It is our one chance. I have done everything in my power to beat this movement against us down south, and have failed. Our enemies are completely masked. They have won popular sentiment through the newspapers. Their next move is to strike directly at us. Whatever is to happen will happen soon. The plan is to attack us, to destroy our property, and the movement is to be advertised as a retaliation for heinous outrages perpetrated by our men. It is possible that the attack will not be by northerners alone, but by men brought in for the purpose. The result will be the same—if it succeeds. The attack is planned to be a surprise. Our one chance is to meet it, to completely frustrate it—to strike an overwhelming blow, and to capture enough of our assailants to give us the evidence we must have."
Brokaw was excited. He emphasized his words with angry sweeps of his arms. He clenched his fists, and his face grew red. He was not like the old, shrewd, indomitable Brokaw, completely master of himself, never revealing himself beyond the unruffled veil of his self-possession, and Philip was surprised. He had expected that Brokaw's wily brain would bring with it half a dozen schemes for the quiet undoing of their enemies. And now here was Brokaw, the man who always hedged himself in with legal breast-works—who never revealed himself to the shot of his enemies—enlisting himself for a fight in the open! Philip had told Gregson that there would be a fight. He was firmly convinced that there would be a fight. But he had never believed that Brokaw would come to join in it. He leaned toward the financier, his face flushed a little by the warmth of the fire and by the knowledge that Brokaw was relinquishing the situation entirely into his hands. If it came to fighting, he would win. He was confident of himself there. But—
"What will be the result if we win?" he asked.