Brokaw and the others
were astonished at the stand I took. It was like throwing a big,
ripe plum into the fire Brokaw was the first to hedge. He came
over to my side in a private interview which we had, and for the
first time I convinced him completely of the tremendous
possibilities before us. To my surprise he began to show actual
enthusiasm in my favor. We figured out how the company, if
properly developed, could be made to pay a dividend of fifty cents
a share on the stock issued within two years. This, I thought,
would be at least a partial return of the original steal. Brokaw
worked the thing through in his own way. He was authorized to vote
for one of the directors, who was in Europe, and he won over two
of the others. As a consequence we voted all of the money in the
treasury, nearly six hundred thousand dollars, and the remainder
of the stock that was on the market, for development purposes.
Brokaw then made the proposition that the company buy up any
interest that wished to withdraw. The two M. P.'s and a
professional promoter from Toronto immediately sold out at fifty
thousand each. With their original hundred thousand these three
retired with an aggregate steal of nearly half a million.
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