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Scattergood Baines

by Clarence Budington Kelland · English · Gutenberg #13307 · 506,425 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Scattergood Baines

Author: Clarence Budington Kelland


        
Release date: August 27, 2004 [eBook #13307]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCATTERGOOD BAINES ***

SCATTERGOOD BAINES

By
CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND

Author of
"_The High Flyers_," "_The Little Moment of Happiness_,"
"_Sudden Jim_," "_Youth Challenges_," etc.



CONTENTS

CHAP.
I. HE INVADES COLDRIVER
II. SCATTERGOOD KICKS UP THE DUST
III. THE MOUNTAIN COMES TO SCATTERGOOD
IV. HE DEALS IN MATCHMAKING
V. HE MAKES IT ROUND NUMBERS
VI. INSURANCE THAT DID NOT LAPSE
VII. HE BORROWS A GRANDMOTHER
VIII. HE DIPS IN HIS SPOON
IX. HE ADMINISTERS SOOTHING SYRUP
X. HE HELPS WITH THE ROUGH WORK
XI. HE INVESTS IN SALVATION
XII. THE SON THAT WAS DEAD
XIII. HE CRACKS AN OBDURATE NUT
XIV. HE TREATS AN ATTACK OF LIFE



CHAPTER I

HE INVADES COLDRIVER


The entrance of Scattergood Baines into Coldriver Valley, and the manner
of his first taking root in its soil, are legendary. This much is clear
past even disputing in the post office at mail time, or evenings in the
grocery--he walked in, perspiring profusely, for he was very fat.

It is asserted that he walked the full twenty-four miles from the
railroad, subsisting on the country, as it were, and sagged down on the
porch of Locker's grocery just before sundown. It is not implied that he
walked all of the twenty-four miles in that single day. Huge bodies move
deliberately.

He sagged down on Locker's porch, and it is reported the corner of the
porch sagged with him. George Peddie has it from his grandfather, who
was an eyewitness, that Scattergood did not so much as turn his head to
look at the assembled manhood of the vicinity, but with infinite pains
and audible grunts, succeeded in bringing first one foot, then the
other, within reach of his hands, and removed his shoes. Following this
he sighed with a great contentment and twiddled his bare toes openly and
flagrantly in the eyes of all Coldriver. He is said now to have uttered
the first words to fall from his mouth in the town where were to lie his
life's unfoldings and fulfillments. They were significant--in the light
of subsequent activities.

"One of them railroads runnin' up here," said he to the mountain just
across the road from him, "would have spared me close to a dozen
blisters."

Conversation had expired on Scattergood's arrival, and the group on the
porch converted itself into an audience. It was an audience that got its
money's worth. Not for an instant did the attention of a single member
of it stray away from this Godsend come to furnish them with their first
real topic of conversation since Crazy French stole a box of Paris
green, mistaking it for a new sort of pancake flour.

Scattergood arose ponderously and limped out into the middle of the
dusty road. From this vantage point he slowly and conscientiously
studied the village.

"Uh-huh!" he said. "'Twouldn't pay to do all that walkin' just for a
visit. Calc'late I'll have to settle."

He walked directly back to the absorbed group of leading citizens, his
shoes dangling, one in each hand, and addressed them genially.

"Your town," said he, "is growin'. Its population jest increased by me."

"Sizable growth," said Old Man Penny, dryly, letting his eye rove over
Scattergood's bulk.

"My line," said Scattergood, "is anythin' needful. Outside of a
railroad, what you figger you need most?"

Nobody answered.

"Is it a grocery store?" asked Scattergood.

Locker stiffened in his chair. "Me and Sam Kittleman calc'lates to sell
all the groceries this town needs," he said.

"How about dry goods?" said Scattergood.

Old Man Penny and Wade Lumley stirred to life at this.

"Lumley and me takes care of the dry goods," said the old man.

"Uh-huh! How about a clothin' store?"

"We got all the clothin' stores there's room for," said Lafe Atwell. "I
run it."

"Kind of got the business of this town sewed up, hain't you?"
Scattergood asked, admiringly. "Wouldn't look with favor on any more
stores?"

"We calculate to keep what business we got," said Old Man Penny. "A
outsider would have a hard time makin' a go of it here."

"Quite likely," said Scattergood. "Still, you never can tell. Let some
feller come in here with a gen'ral store, sellin' for cash--and cuttin'
prices, eh? How would an outsider git along if he done that? Up-to-date
store. Fresh goods. Low prices. Eh? Calc'late some of you fellers would
have to discharge a clerk."

"You hain't got money enough to start a store," Old Man Penny squawked.
"Why, you hain't even got a satchel! You come walkin' in like a tramp."

"There's tramps--and tramps," said Scattergood, placidly. He reached far
down into a trousers pocket and tugged to the light of day a roll that
his fingers could not encircle. He looked at it fondly, tossed it up in
the air a couple of times and caught it, and then held it between thumb
and forefinger until the eyes of his audience had assured themselves
that the outside bill was yellow and its denomination twenty dollars....
The audience gulped.

"Meals to the tavern perty good?" Coldriver's new citizen asked.

"Say," demanded Locker, "be you really thinkin' about startin' a cash
store here?"

"Neighbor," said Scattergood, "never give up valuable information
without gittin' somethin' for it. How much money would a complete and
careful account of my intentions be worth to you?"

Locker snorted. "Bet that wad of bills is a dummy with a counterfeit
twenty outside of it," he said.

Scattergood smiled tantalizingly. Locker had not, fortunately for
Scattergood, the least idea how close to the truth he had been. On one
point only had he been mistaken. The twenty outside was _not_
counterfeit. However, except for three fives, four twos, and ninety
cents in silver, it represented Scattergood's total cash capital.

"I'm goin'," said Scattergood, "to order me _two_ suppers. Two! From
bean soup to apple pie. It's my birthday. Twenty-six to-day, and I
always eat two suppers on my birthdays.... Glad you leadin' citizens see
fit to give me such a hearty welcome to your town. Right kind and
generous of you."

He turned and ambled down the road toward the tavern, planting his bare
feet with evident pleasure in the deepest of the warm sand, and flirting
up little clouds of it behind him. The audience saw him seat himself on
the tavern steps and pull on his shoes. They were too far to hear him
say speculatively to himself: "I never heard tell of a man gittin' a
start in life jest that way--but _that_ hain't any reason it can't be
done. I'm goin' to do this town good, and this valley. Hain't no more 'n
fair them leadin' citizens should give me what help they feel they kin."

Scattergood ate with ease and pleasure two complete suppers--to the
openly expressed admiration of Emma, the waitress. Very shortly
afterward he retired to his room, where, not trusting to the sturdiness
of the bed-slats provided, he dragged mattress and bedding to the floor
and was soon emitting snores that Landlord Coombs assured his wife was
the beat of anybody ever slept in the house not countin' that travelin'
man from Boston. Next morning Scattergood was about early, padding
slowly up and down the crossed streets which made up the village. He was
studying the ground for immediate strategic purposes, just as he had
been studying the valley on his long trudge up from the railroad for
purposes related to distant campaigns. Though Scattergood's arrival in
Coldriver may have seemed impromptu, as his adoption of the town for a
permanent location seemed abrupt, not to say impulsive, neither really
was so. Scattergood rarely acted without reason and after reflection.

True, he had but a moment's glimpse of Coldriver before he decided he
had moved there, but the glimpse showed him the location was the one he
had been searching for.... Scattergood's specialty, his hobby, was
valleys. Valleys down which splashed and roared sizable streams, whose
mountain sides were covered with timber, and whose flats were
comfortable farms--such valleys interested him with an especial
interest. But the valley he had been looking for was one with but a
single possible _outlet_. He wanted a valley whose timber and produce
and products could not go climbing off across the hills, over a number
of easy roads, to market. His valley must be hemmed in. The only way to
market must lie _down_ the valley, with the river. And the river that
flowed down his valley must be swift, with sufficient volume all twelve
months of the year to turn possible mill wheels.... As yet he thought
only of the direct application of power. He had not dreamed yet of great
turbine generators which should transport thousands of horse power,
written in terms of electricity, hundreds of miles across country, there
to light cities and turn the wheels of huge manufactories....

Coldriver Valley was that valley! He felt it as soon as he turned into
it; certainty increased as he progressed between those gigantic walls
black with tall, straight, beautiful spruce. So, when he sat shoeless,
resting his blistered feet on Locker's porch, he was ready to make his
decision. The mere making of it was a negligible detail.

So Scattergood Baines found his valley. He entered it consciously as an
invader, determined to conquer. Pitiful as were the resources of Cortez
as he adventured against the power of Montezuma, or of Pizarro as he
clambered over the Peruvian Andes, they were gigantic compared with
Scattergood's. He was starting to make _his_ conquest backed by one
twenty, three fives, four twos, and ninety cents in silver. It was
obvious to him the country to be conquered must supply the sinews of war
for its own conquest.

Every village has its ramshackle, disused store building. Coldriver had
one, especially well located, and not so ramshackle as it might have
been. It was big; its front was crossed by a broad porch; its show
windows were not show windows at all, but were put there solely to give
light. Coldriver did not know there was such a thing as inviting
patronage by skillful display.

"Sonny," said Scattergood to a boy digging worms in the shade of the
building, "who owns this here ruin?"

"Old Tom Plummer," said the boy, and was even able to disclose where old
Tom was to be found. Scattergood found him feeding a dozen White
Orpingtons.

"Best layers a man can keep," said Scattergood, sincerely. "Man's got to
have brains to even raise chickens."

"I git more eggs to the hen than anybody else in town," said old Tom,
"but nobody listens to me."

"Own a store buildin' downtown, don't you?"

"Calc'late to."

"If you was to git a chance to rent it, how much would it be a month?"

"Repairs or no repairs?"

"No repairs."

"Twenty dollars."

"G'mornin'," said Scattergood, and turned toward the gate.

"What's your hurry, mister?"

"Can't bear to stay near a man that mentions so much money in a breath,"
said Scattergood, with his most ingratiating grin.

"How much could you stay and hear?"

"Not over ten."

"Huh!... Seein' the buildin's in poor shape, I'll call it fifteen."

"Twelve-fifty's as far's I'll go--on a five-year lease," said
Scattergood. It will be seen he fully intended to become permanent.

"What you figger on usin' it fur?"

"Maybe a opry house, maybe a dime museum, maybe a carpenter shop, and
maybe somethin' else. I hain't mentionin' jest what, but it's
law-abidin' and respectable."

"Five-year lease, eh? Twelve-fifty."

"Two months' rent in advance," said Scattergood.

"Squire Hastings'll draw the papers," said old Tom, heading for the
gate. Scattergood followed, and in half an hour was the lessee of a
store building, bound to pay rent for five years, with more than half
his capital vanished--with no stock of goods or wherewith to procure
one, with not even a day's experience in any sort of merchandising to
his credit.

His next step was to buy ten yards of white cloth, a small paint brush,
and a can of paint. Ostentatiously he borrowed a stepladder and
stretched the cloth across the front of his store, from post to post.
Then, equally ostentatiously, he mounted the stepladder and began to
paint a sign. He was not unskilled in the business of lettering. The
sign, when completed, read:

    CASH AND CUT PRICES IS MY MOTTO

Having completed this, he bought a pail, a mop, and a broom, and
proceeded to a thorough housecleaning of his premises.

Old Man Penny and Locker and the rest of the merchants were far from
oblivious to Scattergood's movements. No sooner had his sign appeared
than every merchant in town--excepting Junkin, the druggist, who sold
wall paper and farm machinery as side lines--went into executive session
in the back room of Locker's store.

"He means business," said Locker.

"Leased that store for five year," said Old Man Penny.

"Cash, and Cut Prices," quoted Atwell, "and you fellers know our folks
would pass by their own brothers to save a penny. He'll force us to cut,
too."

"Me--I won't do it," asserted Kettleman.

"Then you'll eat your stock," growled Locker.

"Fellers," said Atwell, "if this man gits started it's goin' to cost all
of us money. He'll draw some trade, even if he don't cut prices. Safe to
figger he'll git a sixth of it. And a sixth of the business in this
region is a pretty fair livin'. If he goes slashin' right and left,
nobody kin tell how much trade he'll draw."

"We should 'a' leased that store between us. Then nobody could 'a' come
in."

"But we didn't. And it's goin' to cost us money. If he puts in clothing
it'll cost me five hundred dollars a year in profits, anyhow. Maybe
more. And you other fellers clost to as much."

"But we can't do nothin'."

"We can buy him off," said Atwell.

The meeting at that moment became noisy. Epithets were applied with
freedom to Scattergood, and even to Atwell, for these were not men who
loved to part with their money. However, Atwell showed them the economy
of it. It was either for them to suffer one sharp pang now, or to endure
a greater dragging misery. They went in a body to call upon Scattergood.

"Howdy, neighbors!" Scattergood said, genially.

"We're the merchants of this town," said Old Man Penny, shortly.

"So I judged," said Scattergood.

"There's merchants enough here," the old man roared on. "Too many. We
don't want any more. We don't want you should start up any business
here."

"You're too late. It's started. I've leased these premises."

"But you hain't no stock in."

"I calc'late on havin' one shortly," said Scattergood, with a twinkle in
his eye, whose meaning was kindly concealed from the five.

"What'll you take not to order any stock?" asked Atwell, abruptly.

"Figger on buyin' me off, eh? Now, neighbors, I've been lookin' for a
place like this, and I calc'late on stayin'. I'm goin' to become
all-fired permanent here."

"Give you a hundred dollars," said Old Man Penny.

"Apiece?" asked Scattergood, and laughed jovially. "It's my busy day,
neighbors. Better call in again."

"What's your figger to pull out now--'fore you're started?"

"Hain't got no figger, but if I had I calc'late it would be about a
thousand dollars."

"Give you two hundred," said Old Man Penny.

Scattergood picked up his mop. "If you fellers really mean business,
talk business. I've figgered my profits in this store, countin' in low
prices, wouldn't be a cent under a couple of thousand the first
year.... And you know it. That's what you're fussin' around here for.
Now fish or git to bait cuttin'."

"Five hundred dollars," said Atwell, and Old Man Penny moaned.

"Tell you what I'll do," said Scattergood. "You men git back here inside
of an hour with seven hundred and fifty _cash_, and lay it in my hand,
and I'll agree not to sell groceries, dry goods, notions, millinery, or
men or women's clothes in this town for a term of twenty year."

They drew off and scolded one another, and glowered at Scattergood, but
came to scratch. "It's jest like robbery," said Old Man Penny,
tremulously.

"Keep your money," retorted Scattergood. "I'm satisfied the way things
is at present."

Within the hour they were back with seven hundred and fifty dollars in
bills, a lawyer, and an agreement, which Scattergood read with minute
attention. It bound him not to sell, barter, trade, exchange, deal, or
in any way to derive a profit from the handling of groceries, dry goods,
notions, millinery, clothing, and gent's furnishings. It contained no
hidden pitfalls, and Scattergood was satisfied. He signed his name and
thrust the roll of bills into his pocket.... Then he picked up his mop
and went to work as hard as ever.

"Say," Old Man Penny said, "what you goin' ahead for? You jest agreed
not to."

"There wasn't nothin' said about moppin'," grinned Scattergood, "and
there wasn't nothin' said about hardware and harness and farm
implements, neither. If you don't b'lieve me, jest read the agreement.
What I'm doin', neighbors, is git this place cleaned out to put in the
finest cash, cut-price, up-to-date hardware store in the state. And
thank you, neighbors. You've done right kindly by a stranger...."

To this point the history of Scattergood Baines has been for the most
part legendary; now we begin to encounter him in the public records, for
deeds, mortgages, and the like begin to appear with his name upon them.
His history becomes authentic.

Seven hundred and fifty dollars is not much when put into hardware, but
Scattergood had no intention of putting even that into a stock of goods.
He had a notion that the right kind of man, with five hundred dollars,
could get credit to twice that amount, and as for farm machinery, he
could sell by catalogue or on commission. His suspicion was proven to be
fact.

But it was not in Scattergood to sit idle while he waited for his stock
to arrive. Coldriver doubtless thought him idle, but he was studying the
locality and the river with the eye of a commander who knew this was to
be his battlefield. What Scattergood wanted now was to place himself
astride Coldriver Valley, somewhere below the village, so that he could
control the upper reaches of the stream. It was not difficult to find
such a location. It lay three miles below town, at the junction of the
north and south branches of Coldriver. The juncture was in a big,
marshy, untillable flat, from which hills rose abruptly. From the
easterly end of the flat the augmented river squeezed in a roaring
rapids through a sort of bottle neck.

Scattergood stood on the hillside and looked upon this with satisfied
eye.

"A dam across that bottle neck," he said to himself, "will flood that
flat. Reg'lar reservoy. Millpond. Git a twenty-foot fall here easy,
maybe more. Calc'late that'll run about any mill folks'll want to build.
And," he scratched his head as a sort of congratulation to it for its
efficiency, "I can't study out how anybody's agoin' to git logs past
here without dickerin' with the man who owns the dam...." Plenty of
water twelve months a year to give free power; a flat made to order for
reservoir or log pond; a complete and effective blockade of both
branches of the river which came down from a country richly timbered! It
was one of the spots Scattergood had dreamed of.

Scattergood knew perfectly well he could not stop a log from passing his
dam. Nor could he shut off the stream. Any dam he built must have a
sluice which could be opened for the passage of timber, and all timber
was entitled to "natural water." But, as he well knew, "natural water"
was not always enough. A dam at this point would raise the level on the
bars of the flat so that logs would not jam, and a log which used the
high water caused by the dam must pay for it. What Scattergood had in
mind was a dam and boom company. It was his project to improve the
river, to boom backwaters, to dynamite ledges, to make the river
passable to logs in spring and fall. It was his idea that such a
company, in addition to demanding pay for the use of "improvements,"
could contract with lumbermen up the river to drive their logs.... And a
mill at this point! Scattergood fairly licked his lips as he thought of
the millions upon millions of feet of spruce to be sawed into lumber.

The firm foundation that Scattergood's strategy rested upon was that
lumbering had not really started in the valley. The valley had not
opened up, but lay undeveloped, waiting to be stirred to life.
Scattergood's strength lay in that he could see ahead of to-day, and was
patient to wait for the developments that to-morrow must bring. To-day
his foresight could get for him what would be impossible to-morrow. If
he stepped softly he could obtain a charter from the state to develop
that river, which, when lumbering interests became actually engaged,
would be fought by them to the last penny.... And he felt in his bones
that day would not long be delayed.

The land Scattergood required was owned by three individuals. All of it
was worthless--except to a man of vision--so, treading lightly,
Scattergood went about acquiring what he needed. His method was not
direct approach. He went to the owners of that land with proffers to
sell, not to buy. To Landers, who owned the marsh on both shores of the
river, he tried to sell the newest development in mowing machines, and
his manner of doing so was to hitch to the newly arrived machine, haul
it to Landers's meadow--where the owner was haying--drag it through
the gate, and unhitch.

"Here," he said, "try this here machine. Won't cost you nothin' to try
it, and I'm curious to see if it works as good as they say."

Landers was willing. It worked better. Landers regarded the machine
longingly, and spoke of price. Scattergood disclosed it.

"Hain't got it and can't afford it," said Landers.

"Might afford a swap?"

"Might. What you got in mind?"

"Say," said Scattergood, changing the subject, "ever try drainin' that
marsh in the fork? Looks like it could be done. Might make a good
medder."

Landers laughed. "If you want to try," he chuckled, "I'll trade it to
you for this here mowin' machine."

"Hum!..." grunted Scattergood, and higgled and argued, but ended by
accepting a deed for the land and turning over the machine to Landers.
Scattergood himself had sixty days to pay for it. It cost him something
like half a dollar an acre, and Landers considered he had robbed the
hardware merchant of a machine.

One side of the bottle neck Scattergood took in exchange for a kitchen
stove and a double harness; the third parcel of land came to him for a
keg of nails, five gallons of paint, sundry kitchen utensils, and twelve
dollars and fifty cents in money.... And when Coldriver heard of the
deals it chuckled derisively and regarded its hardware merchant with
pitying scorn.

Then Scattergood left a youth in charge of his store and went softly to
the state capital. In after years his skill in handling legislatures was
often remarked upon with displeasure. His young manhood held prophecy of
this future ability, for he came home acquainted with nine tenths of the
legislators, laughed at by half of them as a harmless oddity, and with a
state charter for his river company in his pocket.... When folks heard
of that charter they held their sides and roared.

Scattergood returned to selling hardware, and waited. He had an idea he
would hear something stirring on his trail before long, and he fancied
he could guess who and what that something would be. He judged he would
hear from two gentlemen named Crane and Keith. Crane owned some twenty
thousand acres of timber along the North Branch; Keith owned slightly
lesser limits along the South Branch. Both gentlemen were lumbering and
operating mills in another state; their Coldriver holdings they had
acquired, and, as the saying is, forgotten, until the time should come
when they would desire to move into Coldriver Valley.

Now these holdings were recalled sharply to memory, and both of them
took train to Coldriver.

Scattergood had not worried about it. He had simply gone along selling
hardware in his own way--and selling a good deal of it. His store had a
new front, his stock was augmented. It was his business to sell goods,
and he sold them.

For instance, Lem Jones stopped and hitched his team before the store,
one chilly day. His horses he covered with old burlap, lacking blankets.
While Lem was buying groceries, Scattergood selected two excellent
blankets, carried them out, and put them on the horses. Then he went
back into the store to attend to other matters. Presently Lem came in.

"Where'd them blankets come from?" he asked.

"Hosses looked a mite chilly," said Scattergood, without interest, "so I
covered 'em."

"Bleeged," said Lem. Then, awkwardly, "I calc'late I need a pair of
blankets, but I can't afford 'em this year. Wife's been sick--"

"Sure," said Scattergood, "I know. If you want them blankets take 'em
along. Pay me when you kin.... Jest give me a sort of note for a
memorandum. Glad to accommodate you."

So Scattergood marketed his blankets, taking in exchange a perfectly
good, interest-bearing note. Also, he made a friend, for Lem could not
be convinced but Scattergood had done him a notable favor.

Scattergood now had money in the bank. No longer did he have to stretch
his credit for stock. He was established--and all in less than a year.
Hardware, it seemed, had been a commodity much needed in that locality,
yet no one had handled it in sufficient stock because of the
twenty-four-mile haul. That had been too costly. It cost Scattergood
just as much, but his customers paid for it.... The difference between
him and the other merchants was that he sold goods while they allowed
folks to buy.

So, wisely, he kept on building up in a small way, while waiting for
bigger things to develop. And as he waited he studied the valley until
he could recite every inch of it, and he studied the future until he
knew what the future would require of that valley. He knew it before the
future knew it and before the valley knew it, and was laying his plans
to be ready with pails to catch the sap when others, taken by surprise,
would be running wildly about seeking for buckets.

Then Crane and Keith arrived in Coldriver.... That day marked
Scattergood's emergence from the ranks of country merchants, though he
retained his hardware store to the last. That day marked distinctly
Scattergood's launching on a greater body of water. For forty years he
sailed it with varying success, meeting failures sometimes, scoring
victories; but interesting, characteristic in every phase--a genius in
his way and a man who never took the commonplace course when the unusual
was open to him.

"I suppose you've looked this man Baines up," said Crane to Keith when
they met in the Coldriver tavern.

"I know how much he weighs and how many teeth he's had filled," Keith
replied.

"He ought not to be so difficult to handle. He hasn't capital enough to
put this company of his through and his business experience don't amount
to much."

"For monkeying with our buzz saw," said Keith, "we ought to let him lose
a couple of fingers."

"How's this for an idea, then?" Crane said, and for fifteen minutes he
outlined his theory of how best to eliminate Scattergood Baines from
being an obstruction to the free flowage of their schemes for Coldriver
Valley.

"It's got others by the hundred, in one form or another," agreed Keith.
"This jayhawker'll welcome it with tears of joy."

Whereupon they went gladly on their way to Scattergood's store, not as
enemies, but as business men who recognized his abilities and preferred
to have him with them from the start, that they might profit by his
canniness and energy, rather than to array themselves against him in an
effort to take away from him what he had obtained.

Only by the exercise of notable will power could Crane keep his face
straight as he shook hands with ungainly Scattergood and saw with his
own eyes what a perfect bumpkin he had to deal with.

"I suppose you thought we fellows would be sore," he said, genially.

"Dunno's I thought about you at all," said Scattergood. "I was thinkin'
mainly about me."

"Well, we're not. You caught us napping, of course. We should have
grabbed off that dam location long ago--but we weren't expecting
anybody to stray in with his eyes open--like yourself.... Of course your
property and charter aren't worth a great deal till we start lumbering."

"Not to anybody but me," said Scattergood.

"Well, we expect to begin operations in a year or so. We'll build a mill
on the railroad, and drive our logs down the river."

"Givin' my company the drivin' contracts?"

"Looks like we'd _have_ to--if you get in your dam and improvements.
But that'll take money. We've looked you up, of course, and we know you
haven't it--nor any backing.... That's why we've come to see you."

"To be sure," said Scattergood. "Goin' to drive 'way to the railroad,
eh? How if there was a mill right at my dam? Shorten your drive twenty
mile, wouldn't it, eh?"

"Yes," said Keith, laughing at Scattergood's ignorance; "but how about
transportation from your mill to the railroad? We can't drive cut
lumber."

"Course not," said Scattergood, "but this valley's goin' to open up.
It's startin'. There's only one way to open a valley, and that's to run
a railroad up it.... Narrow-gauge 'u'd do here. Carry mostly lumber, but
passengers, too."

"Thinking of building one?" asked Crane, almost laughing in
Scattergood's face.

"Thinkin' don't cost nobody anythin'," said Scattergood. "Ever take a
look at that charter of mine?"

"No."

"I'll let you read it over a bit. Maybe you'll git a idea from it."

He extracted the parchment from his safe, and spread it before them.
"Kind of look careful along toward the end--in the tail feathers of it,
so to speak," he advised.

They did so, and Crane looked up at the fat hardware man with eyes that
were not quite so contemptuous. "By George!" he said, "this thing's a
charter for a railroad down the valley, too."

"Uh-huh!" said Scattergood. "Dunno's the boys quite see what it was all
about, but they calculated to please me, so they put it through jest as
it stood. Mighty nice fellers up to the legislature."

"Pretty far in the future," said Keith, "and mighty expensive."

"Maybe not so far," said Scattergood, "and I could make a darn good
start narrow-gaugin' it with a hunderd thousand."

"Which you've got handy for use," said Crane.

"There _is_ that much money," said Scattergood, "and if there is, why,
it kin be got."

"Let's get back to the river, now," said Keith. "If we're going to start
lumbering in a year, say, we've got to have the river in shape. Take
quite some time to get it cleared and dammed and boomed."

"Six months," said Scattergood.

"Cost a right smart pile."

"The work I'm figgerin' on would come to about thirty-odd thousand."

"Which you haven't got."

"Somebody has," said Scattergood.

"_We_ have," said Crane. "That's why we came to you--and with a
proposition. You've grabbed this thing off, but you can't hog it,
because you haven't the money to put it through. Our offer is this: You
put in your locations and your charter against our money. We'll finance
it. Your enterprise entitles you to control. We won't dispute that. You
can have fifty-one per cent of the stock for what you've contributed. We
take the rest for financing. We're known, and can get money."

"How you figger to work it?"

"We'll bond for forty thousand dollars. Keith and I can place the bonds.
That'll give us money to go ahead."

Scattergood reached down and took off a huge shoe. Usually he thought
more accurately when his feet were unconfined. "That means we'd sort of
mortgage the whole thing, eh?"

"That's the idea."

"And if we didn't pay interest on the bonds, why, the fellers that had
'em could foreclose?"

"But we needn't worry about that."

"Not," said Scattergood, "if you fellers sign a contract with the dam
and boom company to give them the exclusive job of drivin' all your
timber at, say, sixty cents a thousand feet of logs. And if you'd stick
a clause in that contract that you'd begin cuttin' within twelve months
from date."

"Sure we'd do that," said Keith. "To our advantage as much as to yours."

"To be sure," said Scattergood.

"It's a deal, then?"

"Far's I'm concerned," said Scattergood, slipping his foot inside his
shoe, "it is."

That afternoon, the papers having been signed and the deal consummated,
Scattergood sat cogitating.

"I've been done," he said to himself, solemnly, "accordin' to them
fellers' notion. They come and seen me, and done me. They planned out
how they'd do it, and I didn't never suspect a thing. Uh-huh! Seems like
I was unfortunate, just gettin' a start in life like I be.... Bonds,
says they. Uh-huh! They'll place 'em, and place 'em handy. First
int'rest day there won't be no int'rest, and them bonds'll be
foreclosed--and where'll I be? Mighty ingenious fellers, Crane and
Keith.... And I up and walked right into it like a fly into a molasses
barrel. Them fellers," he said, even more somberly, "come here
calc'latin' to cheat me out of my river.... Me bein' jest a fat man
without no brains...."

Crane and Keith had left Scattergood the executive head of the new dam
and boom company, and had confided to him the task of building the dam
and improving the river. He approached it sadly.

"Might as well save what I kin out of the wreck," he said to himself,
and quietly manufactured a dummy contracting company to whom he let the
entire job for a lump sum of thirty-eight thousand seven hundred
dollars. The dummy contractor was Scattergood Baines.

The dam was completed, booms and cribbing placed, ledges blasted out
well within the six months' period set for those operations. Every
thirty days Scattergood, in the name of the dummy contractor, was paid
eighty per cent of his estimates, and at the completion of the work he
received the remainder of the whole sum.

"I wouldn't 'a' done it to them boys," he said, as he surveyed a deposit
of upward of seven thousand dollars, his profit on the transaction, "if
it hadn't 'a' been they organized to cheat me out of my river. I
calc'late in the circumstances, though, I'm most entitled to what I kin
salvage out of the wreck."

Now the Coldriver Dam and Boom Company, Scattergood Baines president and
manager, was ready for business, which was to take the logs of Messrs.
Crane and Keith and drive them down the river at the rate of sixty cents
per thousand feet. It was ready and eager, and so expressed itself in
quaintly worded communications from Baines to those gentlemen. But no
logs appeared to be driven.

"Jest like I said," Scattergood told himself, and, the day being hot and
the road dusty, he removed his shoes and rested his sweltering bulk in
the shade to consider it.

"It's a nice river," he said, audibly. "I hate to git done out of it."

After long delays Crane and Keith made pretense of building camps and
starting to log. But one difficulty after another descended on their
operations. In the spring, when each of them should have had several
millions of feet of spruce ready to roll into the water, not a log was
on rollways. Not a man was in the camps, for, owing to reasons not to be
comprehended by the public, the woodsmen of both operators had struck
simultaneously and left the woods.

Presently the first interest day arrived, with not even a hope of being
able to meet the required payment at a future date. Bondholders--dummies,
just as Scattergood's contractor was a dummy--met. Their deliberations
were brief. Foreclose with all promptitude was their word, and foreclose
they did. With the result that legal notices were published to the effect
that on the sixteenth day of June the dam, booms, cribbing, improvements,
charter, contracts, and property of whatsoever nature belonging to the
Coldriver Dam and Boom Company were to be sold at public auction on the
steps of the county courthouse. Scattergood had lost his river....

"Terms of the sale are cash with the bid," said Crane to Keith. "I saw
to that."

"Good. Wasn't necessary, I guess. There hasn't been even a wriggle out
of Baines."

"Won't be. We'll have to send somebody up to bid it in. It's just taking
money out of one pocket to put it into the other, but we've got to go
through the motions."

"Anyhow, let's get credit for grabbing a bargain," said Keith. "Bid her
in cheap. No use taking a big wad of money out of circulation even for a
few days."

"Ten thousand'll be enough. Say ten thousand six hundred, just to make
it sound better. Have to have two bidders there."

"Sure," agreed Keith. "I guess this'll teach our fat dreamer of dreams
not to get in the way of the cars."

Scattergood's stock had gone down in Coldriver. True, his hardware store
was thriving. In the two years his stock had increased from what his
seven hundred and fifty dollars, with credit added, would buy, to an
inventory of better than five thousand dollars, free of debt. It is true
also that with the last winter coming on he had looked about for a
chance to keep his small surplus at work for him, and his eyes had
fallen upon the item of firewood. In Coldriver were a matter of sixty
houses and a hotel, all of which derived their heat from hardwood
chunks, and cooked their meals on range fires with sixteen-inch split
wood. The houses were mostly of that large, comfortable, country variety
which could not be kept warm with one fire. Scattergood figured they
would burn on an average of fifteen cords of wood.

Now stove wood, to be really useful, must have seasoned a year. It is
not pleasant to build fires with green wood. Appreciating this,
Scattergood ambled about the countryside and bought up every available
stick of wood at prices of the day--and under, for he was a good buyer.
He secured a matter of a thousand cords--and then waited hopefully.

It was a small transaction, promising no great profits, but Scattergood
Baines was never, even when a rich man, one to scorn a small deal....
Within sixty days he turned over his corner in wood, realizing a profit
of something over four hundred dollars.... This is merely to illustrate
how Scattergood's capital grew.

On June 16th Scattergood drove to the county seat. He now owned a horse,
and a buggy whose seat he more than comfortably filled. In the county
seat Scattergood was not unknown, for various county officers had been
helped to their place by his growing influence in his town--notably the
sheriff.

There was little interest in the sale, and what interest there was
Scattergood caused by his unexpected appearance. Nobody had imagined he
would be present. Now that he was there, nobody could imagine why. He
did not enlighten them, though he was delighted to sit in the sun on the
courthouse steps, waiting for the hour of the sale, and to chat. He
loved to chat, especially if he could get off his shoes and wriggle his
toes in the sunshine. And so he sat, bare of foot, when the sheriff
appeared and made his announcement of the approaching sale. Scattergood
chatted on, apparently not interested.

"All the dams, booms, cribbings, improvements, and property of the
Coldriver Dam and Boom Company ..." the sheriff read.

"Including contracts and charter," amended Scattergood.

"Including contracts and charter," agreed the sheriff, and Scattergood
continued his chat.

Bidding began. It was not brisk or exciting. Five thousand was the first
offer, from a young man appertaining to Crane. Keith's young man raised
him five hundred. Back and forth they tossed it, carrying on the
pretense, until Keith's young man reached the sum of ten thousand six
hundred dollars.... A silence followed.

"Ten thousand six hundred I'm offered," said the sheriff, loudly, and
repeated it. He had been a licensed auctioneer in his day. "Do I hear
seven hundred? Seven hundred ... Six fifty ..." A portentous pause.
"Going at ten thousand six hundred, once. Going at ten thousand six
hundred, twice ..."

"Ten thousand seven hunderd," said Scattergood, casually.

Crane's young man looked at Keith's young man in a panic. They had only
the sum they had bid upon them.... Cash with bid were the terms of
sale. Scattergood, out of the corner of his eye, saw them rush together
and confer frenziedly. His eye glinted.

"Ten thousand eight hundred," Crane's youth bid, desperately.

"Cash with bid is terms of sale," said Scattergood. "I object to
listenin' to that bid without the young man perduces." He smiled at the
sheriff.

"Mr. Baines is right," said the sheriff. "Protect your bid with the cash
or I cannot receive it."

"Make _him_ protect his bid!" shouted Crane's young man.

"Certain," said Scattergood, approaching the sheriff and drawing a huge
roll of bills from his sagging trousers pocket. "Calc'late you'll find
her there, Mr. Sheriff, and some besides. Make your change and gimme
back the rest."

"I'm waitin' on you, young feller," said the sheriff, eying the young
men.... "Ten thousand seven hundred I hear. Going at ten thousand seven
hundred--once.... Twice.... Three times!... Sold to Mr. Baines for
ten thousand seven hundred dollars...."

So ends the first epoch of Scattergood Baines's career in Coldriver
Valley. Here he emerges as a personage. From this point his fame began
to spread, and legend grew. Had he not, in two brief years, after
arriving with less than fifty dollars as a total capital, acquired a
profitable hardware store--donated in the beginning by competitors? Had
he not now, for the most part with money wrenched from Crane and Keith
by his dummy contracting, been enabled to bid in for ten thousand seven
hundred dollars a new property worth nearly four times that much? He was
a man into whose band wagon all were eager to clamber.

But Scattergood did not change. He went back to his hardware store and
waited--waited for Crane and Keith to start their inevitable logging
operations. For in his safe reposed ironclad contracts with those
gentlemen, covering the future for a decade, compelling them to pay him
sixty cents for every thousand feet of timber that floated down his
river. It was a good two years' work. He could well afford to wait....

Scattergood sat on the porch of his store, in the sunniest spot,
twiddling his bare toes.

"The way to make money," he said to the mountain opposite, "is to let
smarter folks 'n you be make it for you ... like I done."



CHAPTER II

SCATTERGOOD KICKS UP THE DUST


Scattergood Baines sat on the porch of his hardware store and looked
down Coldriver Valley. It was very beautiful, even under the hot summer
sun of the second anniversary of Scattergood's arrival in that part of
the world, but he was not seeing it as it was--mountainous, green,
with untouched forests, quickened to life and sound by the swift,
rushing, splashing downrush of a tireless mountain river. Scattergood
saw the valley as he was going to make it, for he was a specialist in
valleys.

For years he had searched for an undeveloped valley--for the sort of
valley it would be worth his while to take in hand, and two years ago he
had found it and invaded it. His equipment for its conquest had been
meager--some fifty dollars in money and a head filled from ear to ear
and from eyebrows to scalp lock with shrewdness. His progress in
twenty-four months had been notable, for he was sole proprietor of a
profitable hardware store in Coldriver village, and controlled the upper
stretches of Coldriver by virtue of a certain dam and boom company built
with other men's capital for Scattergood's benefit and behoof.

Now, in the eye of his mind, he could see the whole twenty-odd miles of
his valley. Along the left bank, hanging perilously to the slope of the
mountain, he saw the rails of a narrow-gauge railroad reaching from
Coldriver Valley to the main line that passed the valley's mouth. He saw
sturdy, snorting little engines drawing logs to sawmills of a magnitude
not dreamed of by any other man in the locality, and he saw other
engines hauling out lumber to the southward. He saw villages where no
villages existed that day, and villages meaning more traffic for his
railroad, more trade for the stores he had it in his thought to
establish. Something else he saw, but more dimly. This vision took the
shape of a gigantic dam far back in the mountains, behind which should
be stored the waters from the melting snows and from the spring rains,
so that they might be released at will to insure a uniform flow
throughout the year, wet months and dry months, as he desired. He saw
this water pouring over other dams, turning water wheels, giving power
to mills and factories. More than that, in the remotest and dimmest
recess of his brain he saw not sharply, not with full comprehension,
this tremendous water power converted into electricity and transported
mile upon mile over far-reaching wires, to give light and energy to
distant communities.

But all that was remote; it lay in the years to come. For the present
smaller affairs must content him. Even the matter of the narrow-gauge
railroad was beyond his grasp.

Scattergood reached down mechanically and removed his huge shoes; then,
stretching out his fat legs gratefully, he twiddled his toes in the
sunlight and gave himself up to practical thought. He controlled the
tail of the valley with his dam and boom company; he must control its
mouth. He must have command over the exit from the valley so that every
individual, every log, every article of merchandise that entered or left
the valley, should pass through his hands. That was to be the next step.
He must straddle the mouth of the valley like the fat colossus he was.

Scattergood was placid and patient. He knew what he wanted to do with
his valley, and had perfect confidence he should accomplish it. But he
had no disposition to hasten matters unwisely. It was better, as he told
Sam Kettleman, the grocer, "to let an apple fall in your lap instead of
skinnin' your shins goin' up the tree after it--and then findin' it was
green."

So, though he wanted the mouth of his river, and wanted it badly, he did
not rush off, advertising his need, and try brashly to grab the forty or
fifty acres of granite and scrub and steep mountain wall that his heart
desired. Instead, he basked in the sunshine, twiddling his bare toes
ecstatically, and let the huge bulk of him sink more contentedly into
the well-reinforced armchair which creaked under his slightest motion.

Scattergood glanced across the dusty square to the post office. The mail
was in, and possibly there were letters there for him. He thought it
very likely, and he wanted to see them--but movement was repulsive to
his bulging body. He sighed and closed his eyes. A shrill whistle
attempting the national anthem, with certain liberties of variation,
caused him to open them again, and he saw, passing him, a small boy,
apparently without an object in life.

"A-hum!" said Scattergood.

The boy stopped and looked inquiringly.

"If I knew," said Scattergood to his bare feet, "where there was a boy
that could find his way across to the post office and back without
gittin' sunstroke or stone bruise, I dunno but I'd give him a penny to
fetch my mail."

"It's worth a nickel," said the boy.

"Give you two cents," said Scattergood.

"Nickel or nothin'," said the boy.

Scattergood scrutinized the boy a moment, then surrendered.

"Bargain," said he, but as the boy hustled across the square
Scattergood heaved himself out of his chair and padded inside the store.
He stood scratching his head a moment and then removed a tin object from
a card holding eleven more of its like. With it in his hand, he returned
to his chair and resettled himself cautiously, for to apply his weight
suddenly might have resulted in disaster.

The boy was returning. Scattergood placed the tin object to his lips and
puffed out his bulging cheeks. A sound resulted such as the ears of
Coldriver had seldom suffered. It was shrill, it was penetrating, it
rose and fell with a sort of ripping, tearing slash. The boy stopped in
front of Scattergood and stared. Without a word Scattergood held out his
hand for his mail, and, receiving it, placed a nickel in the grimy palm
that remained extended. Then, apparently oblivious to the boy's
existence, he applied himself again to the whistle.

"Say," said the boy, "what's that?"

"Patent whistle," said Scattergood, without interest.

"Is it your'n, or is it for sale?"

"Calculate I might sell."

"How much?"

"Nickel."

"Gimme it," said the boy, and Scattergood gravely received back his
coin.

"Might tell the kids I got more," said Scattergood, and watched the boy
trot down the street, entranced by the horrid sound he was fathering.

This transaction from beginning to end was eloquent of Scattergood
Baines's character. He had been obliged to pay more than he regarded a
service as worth, but had not protested vainly. Instead he had set about
recouping himself as best he could. The whistle cost him two cents and a
half. Therefore the boy had come closer to working for Scattergood's
figure than for his own demanded price. In addition, Scattergood's wares
were to receive free and valuable advertising, as was proven by the
fact that before night he had sold ten more whistles at a profit of
twenty-five cents! No deal was too small to receive Scattergood's best
and most skillful attention.

Now he opened his letters, one of which was worthy of attention, for it
was from a friend in the office of the Secretary of State for that
commonwealth--a friend who owed his position there in great measure to
Scattergood's influence. The letter gave the information that two
gentlemen named Crane and Keith had pooled their timber holdings on the
east and west branches of Coldriver, and had filed papers for the
incorporation of the Coldriver Lumber Company.

This was important. First, the gentlemen named were no friends of
Scattergood's by reason of having underestimated that fleshy individual
to their financial detriment in the matter of a certain dam and boom
company, of which Scattergood was now sole owner. Second, because it
presaged active lumbering operations. Third, because, in Scattergood's
safe were ironclad contracts with both of them whereby the said dam and
boom company should receive sixty cents a thousand feet for driving
their logs down the improved river.

And fourth--the fourth brought Scattergood's active toes to a rest.
Fourth, it meant that Crane and Keith would be building the largest
sawmill--the only sawmill of consequence--that the valley had seen.

It was an attribute of Scattergood's peculiar genius that even after you
had encountered him once, and come out the worse for it, you still rated
him as a fatuous, guileless mound of flesh. You did not credit his
successes to astuteness, but to blundering luck. Another point also
should be noted: If Scattergood were hunting bear he gave it out that
his game was partridge. He would hunt partridge industriously and
conspicuously until men's minds were turned quite away from the subject
of bear. Then suddenly he would shift shotgun for rifle and come home
with a bearskin in the wagon. Probably he would bring partridge, too,
for he never neglected by-products.

"Them fellows," said he to himself, referring to Messrs. Crane and
Keith, "hain't aimin' nor wishin' to pay me no sixty cents a thousand
for drivin' their logs.... I figger they calculate to cut about ten
million feet. That'll be six thousand dollars. Profit maybe two
thousand. Don't see as I kin afford to lose it, seems as though."

On the river below Coldriver village were three hamlets each consisting
of a general store, a church, and a few scattered dwellings. These
villages were the supply centers for the mountain farms that lay behind
them. Necessity had located them, for nowhere else along the valley was
there flat land upon which even the tiniest village could find a resting
place. These were Bailey, Tupper Falls, and Higgins's Bridge. In common
with Coldriver village their communication with the world was by means
of a stage line consisting of two so-called stages, one of which left
Coldriver in the morning on the downward trip, the other of which left
the mouth of the valley on the upward trip. There was also one freight
wagon.

The morning following Scattergood's second anniversary in the region, he
boarded the stage, occupying so much space therein that a single fare
failed utterly to show a profit to the stage line, and alighted at
Bailey. He went directly to the store, where no one was to be found save
sharp-featured Mrs. Bailey, wife of the proprietor.

"Mornin', ma'am," said Scattergood, politely. "Husband hain't in?"

"Up the brook, catchin' a mess of trout," she responded, shortly. "He's
always catchin' a mess of trout, or huntin' a deer or a partridge or
somethin'. If you're ever aimin' to see Jim Bailey here, you want to
git around afore daylight or after dark."

"Hain't it lucky," said Scattergood, "that some men manages to marry
wimmin that kin look after their business?"

"Not for the wimmin," said Mrs. Bailey, shortly.

"My name's Baines," said Scattergood.

"I calculate to know _that_."

"Like livin' here, ma'am?"

"Not so but what I could bear a change."

"Um!... Mis' Bailey, I calc'late you'd hate to see Jim make a little
money so's to be able to git away from here if he wanted to."

"Him? Only way hell ever make money is to ketch a solid-gold trout."

"Maybe I'm the solid-gold trout you're speakin' about," said
Scattergood.

She regarded him sharply a moment. "Set," she said. "Looks like you got
somethin' on your mind."

There were times when Scattergood could be direct and succinct. He
perceived it was best to be so with this woman.

"I might want to buy this here store--under certain conditions."

"How much?"

"Inventory, and a share in the profits of a deal I got in mind."

"What's them conditions you mentioned?"

"That you and Jim don't mention the sale to anybody, and keep on runnin'
the place--for wages--until I'm ready for you to quit."

"What's the deal them profits is comin' from, and how much you figger
they'll be?"

"The deal's feedin' about five hunderd men, and the profits'll be
plenty. I furnish the capital and show you how it's to be done. All
Jim'll have to do is foller directions."

Then, lowering his voice, Scattergood went farther into particulars.
Suddenly Mrs. Bailey arose, and screamed shrilly to an urchin playing in
the road, "You, Jimmy, go up the brook and fetch your pa." Scattergood
knew his deal was as good as closed. Before the up-bound stage arrived
it was closed. The Baileys had cash in hand for their store and
Scattergood carried away a duly executed bill of sale.

The following day, for fifteen hundred dollars cash, he acquired all the
property of the stage line--and when the news became public it was
believed that Scattergood had departed from his wits, for the line was
notoriously unprofitable and an aching worry to its owners. But the
commotion the transfer of the stage line created was as nothing to the
news that Scattergood had bought a strip of land along the railroad at
the mouth of the river, and was erecting a large wooden building upon
it. When asked concerning this and its purpose, Scattergood replied that
he wasn't made up in his mind what he would use it for, but likely it
would be an "opry" house.

Following this, Scattergood went to the city, where he spent much
valuable time interviewing gentlemen in wholesale grocery and provision
houses....

Jim Bailey liked to fish--which is not an attribute to create scandal.
He was not ambitious, nor was he endowed with a full reservoir of
initiative, but he was a shrewd customer and seldom got the worst of it.
One virtue he possessed, and that was an ability to follow
directions--and to keep his mouth shut.

Not many days after Scattergood became the owner of the store at Bailey,
Jim was a caller at the new offices of the lumber company, formed when
Crane and Keith pooled their interests.

"I come to see you," he told Crane, "because it seemed like you got to
feed your lumberjacks, and I want to git the contract for furnishin' and
deliverin' the provisions."

"We've sure got to feed 'em," said Crane. "But five hundred men eat a
lot of grub. Can you swing it if we give you a chance at it?"

Bailey produced a letter from the Coldriver bank which stated the bank
was willing to stand behind any contract made by the Bailey Provision
Company, up to a certain substantial amount.

"Who's the Bailey Provision Company?"

"Me 'n' my wife mostly holds the stock."

"Huh!... You'll handle the stuff, deliver it, and all that? What's your
proposition?"

"Well, havin' been in business twenty-odd year, I kin buy mighty
favorable. More so 'n you fellers. All I want's a livin' profit. Tell
you what I'll do. I'll take this here contract like this: Goods to be
delivered in your camps at actual cost of the stuff and freighting plus
ten per cent. We'll keep stock on hand in depots, and deliver as needed.
It'll save you all the trouble of handlin'. We'll carry the stock, and
you pay once a month for what's delivered."

Crane called in Keith, and they discussed the proposition. It presented
distinct advantages; might, indeed, save them money in addition to
trouble. Bailey clinched the thing by showing an agreement with the
stage line to transport the provisions at a price per hundred pounds
notably lower than Crane and Keith imagined could be obtained, and went
home carrying the contract Scattergood had sent him to get.

Scattergood put the paper away in his safe and sat back in his
reinforced armchair, with placid satisfaction making benignant his face.
"I calc'late," he said to himself, "that this here dicker'll keep Crane
and Keith gropin' and wonderin' and scrutinizin' more or less--when it
gits to their ears. Shouldn't be s'prised if it come to worry 'em a
mite."

So, having created a diversion to conceal the movements of his main
attack, Scattergood got out his maps and began scientifically to plan
his fall and winter campaign.

Timber was his objective. Not a hundred acres of it, nor a thousand, but
tens of thousands, even a hundred thousand acres of spruce-covered hills
was the goal he had set. To control his valley he must have money; to
get money for his developments he must have timber. Also, ownership of
vast limits of growing spruce was necessary to the control of the
valley. He must own more timber thereabouts than anybody else. He must
dominate the timber situation. To a man whose total resources totaled a
matter of fifty thousand dollars--the bulk of which was tied up in a dam
and boom company as yet unproductive--this looked like a mouthful beyond
his capacity to bite off. Even with timber in the back reaches selling
at sixty-six cents an acre, a hundred thousand acres meant an investment
of sixty-six thousand dollars. True, Scattergood could look forward to
the day when that same timberland would be worth ten dollars an acre--a
million dollars--but looking ahead would not produce a cent to-day.

Of timberlands, whose cut logs must go down Coldriver Valley to reach a
market, Scattergood's maps showed him there were probably a quarter of a
million acres--mostly spruce. Estimating with rigid conservatism, this
would run eight thousand feet to the acre, or twenty billion feet of
timber--and this did not take into consideration hardwood. In
Scattergood's secret heart he wanted it _all_. All he might not be able
to get, but he must have more than half--and that half distributed
strategically.

It will be seen that Scattergood was content to wait. His motto was,
"Grab a dollar to-day--but don't meddle with it if it interferes with a
thousand dollars in ten years."

Scattergood's maps had been the work of two years. That they were
accurate he knew, because he had set down on them most of the facts they
showed. They were valuable, for, in Scattergood's rude printing, one
could read upon them the owner of every piece of timber, every farm, the
acreage in each piece of timber, with a careful estimate of the amount
of timber to the acre--also its proportions of spruce, beech, birch,
maple, ash.

Toward the head of the valley, where good timber was thickest,
Scattergood's map showed how it spread out like a fan, with the two main
branches of Coldriver and numerous brooks as the ribs. Then, down the
length of the stream, were parallel bands of it. On the map one could
see what this timber could be bought for; prices ranging from two
dollars and a half an acre down the main river to sixty-six cents at the
extremity of the fan.

As Scattergood studied his maps he saw, far in the future, perhaps, but
clearly and distinctly and certainly, two parallel lines running up the
river to his village; he saw, branching off from a spot below the
village, where East and West Branches joined to pour over a certain dam
owned by him, other narrower parallel lines following river and brooks
back and back into the mountains, the spruce-clad mountains. These
parallel lines were rails. The ones which ran close together were
narrow-gauge--logging roads to bring logs to the big mill which
Scattergood planned to build beside his dam. The broader lines were a
standard-gauge road to carry the cut lumber to the outside world, and
not only the cut lumber, but all the traffic of the valley, all the
freight, the manufactured products of other mills and factories which
were to come along the banks of his river. Here, in black and white, was
set down Scattergood's life plan. When it was accomplished he would be
through. He would be willing to have his maps rolled up and himself to
be laid on the shelf, for he would have done the thing he set out to
do.... For, strange as it may seem, Scattergood was not pursuing money
for money itself--his objective was achievement.

Scattergood was not the only man to own or to study maps. Crane and
Keith were at the same interesting employment, but on a lesser scale.

"Here's your stuff," said Keith, "over here on the East Branch--thirty
thousand acres. Here's mine, on the West Branch--close to thirty
thousand acres. We don't touch anywhere."

"But our locations put us in the driver's seat so far as the timber up
here is concerned. We're in control. There are sixty thousand acres of
mighty good spruce in that triangle between us, and it's as good as
ours. It's there for us when we need it. All we got to do is reach out
our hand for it. The folks that own it haven't got the money to go ahead
with it. Pretty sweet for us--with sixty thousand acres in the palm of
our hand and not a cent invested in it."

"Sweet is the word. But what if somebody grabbed it off?"

"Who'll grab?"

"I think we ought to tie it up somehow. If we owned the whole thing we
could work a heap more profitably. Now we've got to divide camps, or
else cut off one slice or the other at a time. If we owned the whole
thing we could make our cut where it would be easiest handled--and leave
the rest till things develop."

"It's safe. And we can make it mighty unpleasant for anybody who comes
ramming into this region in a small way. Which reminds me of that
Baines--our friend Scattergood. Are we going to let him get away with
that dam and boom company we made him a present of?"

"I can't see ourselves digging down for sixty cents a thousand for
driving our logs--contracts or no contracts."

"Maybe we can buy him off."

"Hanged if I'll do that--we'll chase him off. Look here--he's got to
handle our logs. If he can't handle them we've got a right to put on our
own crew and drive them down--and charge back to him what it costs us.
Get the idea?"

"Not exactly."

"We deliver the logs as specified in the spring. Let him start his
drive. Then, I figure, he'll have some trouble with his men, and most
likely men he don't have trouble with will get into a row with
lumberjacks going out of camp. See? Men of his that we can't handle
we'll pitch into the river. Then we'll take charge with our men and make
the drive. On top of that we'll sue Scattergood for thirty or forty
cents a thousand--extra cost we've been put to by his inability to
handle the drive. That'll put a crimp in him--and if we keep after him
hot and heavy it won't take long to drive him out of the valley."

"Don't believe he's dangerous, anyhow. That last deal was bullhead
luck."

"Yes, but he's stirring around. We don't want anybody poking in. There's
a heap of money in this valley for us, if we can keep it to ourselves,
and the sooner the idea gets abroad that it isn't healthful to butt in,
the better."

"Guess you're right."

If Scattergood could have heard this conversation perhaps he would not
have been so gayly partaking of the softer joys of life. For that is
what Scattergood was doing. He had polished up his buggy, put his new
harness on his horse, and was driving out to make a social call. Not
only that, but it was a social call upon a lady!

Scattergood was lonely sometimes. In one of his moments of loneliness
it had occurred to him that a great many men had wives, and that wives
were, undoubtedly, a remarkably effective insurance against that
ailment.

"I gather," he said, in the course of a casual conversation with Sam
Kettleman, the grocer, "that wives is sometimes inconvenient and
sometimes tryin' on the temper, but on the whole they're returnin'
income on the investment."

"Some does and some doesn't," said Kettleman, lugubriously.

"Hotel grub," said Scattergood, "gets mighty similar. Roast beef and
roast pork! Roast pork and roast beef! Then cold roast pork and beef for
supper.... And me obliged, by the way I'm built, to pay extry board.
Sundays I always order me two dinners. Seems like a wife 'u'd act as a
benefit there."

"But there's drawbacks," said Sam, "and there's mother-in-laws, and
there's lendin' a dollar to your brother-in-law."

"The thing to do," said Scattergood, "is to pick one without them
impediments. I also figger," he added, wriggling his bare toes, "that a
feller ought to pick one that could lend a dollar to _your_ brother in
case he needed one."

"Hain't none sich to be found," said Sam.

"I calc'late to look," Scattergood replied.

He had already done his looking. The lady of his choice, tradition says,
was older than he, but this is a base libel. She was not older. She had
not yet reached thirty. Scattergood had first encountered her when she
came to his hardware store to buy a plow. On that occasion her excellent
business judgment and her powers of barter had attracted him strongly.
As a matter of fact, he was a bit in doubt if she hadn't the best of him
on the deal.... Her name was Amanda Randle.

Scattergood gave the matter his best thought, then polished the buggy
as aforesaid, and called.

"Howdy, Miss Randle?" said he, tying to her hitching post.

"Howdy, Mr. Baines?"

"I calculated," said he, "that, bein' as it's a hot night, a buggy ride
might sort of cool you off, after a way of speakin'."

Amanda blushed, for the proffer of a buggy ride was not without definite
significance in that region.

"I'll git my shawl and bonnet," she said.

To the casual eye it would have appeared that Scattergood's summer was
devoted wholly to running his hardware store and to paying court to
Mandy Randle.... But this would not have been so. He was making ready
for the winter--and for the spring that came after it. For in the spring
came the drive, and with the coming of the drive Scattergood foresaw the
coming of trouble. He was not a man to dodge trouble that might bring
profit dangling to the fringe of her skirt.

Coldriver watched with deep interest the progress of Scattergood's suit.
It had figured Mandy as an old maid--for, as has been mentioned, she was
close upon her thirtieth year, which, in a village where eighteen is the
general age for taking a husband, is well along in spinsterhood. It was
late in October when Scattergood "came to scratch," as the local saying
is.

"Mandy," said he, "I calc'late you noticed I been comin' around here
consid'able."

"You have--seems as though," she said, and blushed. It was coming. She
recognized the signs.

"I been a-comin' on purpose," said Scattergood.

"Do tell," said Mandy.

"Yes, ma'am. It's like this: I own a hardware store and some other
prop'ty; not a heap, ma'am, but _some_. It's gittin' to be more. I
calculate, some day, to be wuth consid'able. When a man gits to this
p'int, he ought to have him a wife, eh?"

Mandy made no reply.

"So," said Scattergood, "I took to lookin' around a bit, and of all the
girls there was, Mandy, it looked to me like you would be the only one
to make the kind of a wife I want. That's honest. Yes, sir. Says I to
myself, 'Mandy Randle's the one for me.' So I washed up the buggy and
hitched up the horse and come right out. I been comin' ever since,
because that there first impression of mine has been bore out by
facts.... I'm askin' you, Mandy, will you be Missis Baines?"

"You're stiddy and savin'--and makin'," said Mandy. "Add what _you_ got
to what I got, and we'll be pretty well off. And I aim to help take care
of it."

"I aim to have you help," said Scattergood. "But, Mandy, I don't want
you scrimpin' and savin' too much. I want my wife should have as good as
the best, and be looked up to by the best. The day'll come, Mandy, when
we'll keep a hired girl!"

"No extravagances, Scattergood, till I say we kin afford it.... And,
Scattergood, you got to promise not to make no important move without
consultin' me. I got a head for business."

"Mandy," said Scattergood, "you and me is equal partners."

Which, say both tradition and history, is how the arrangement worked
out. Mandy and Scattergood _were_ equal partners. Scattergood was to
learn through the years that Mandy's _was_ a good head for business,
and, though business men who came to deal with Scattergood in the future
sometimes laughed when they found Mandy present at their conferences,
they never laughed but once.... And, though Scattergood's proffer of
marriage had not been couched in fervent terms of love, nor had Mandy
fallen on his overbroad bosom with rapture, theirs was a married life to
be envied by most, for there was between them perfect trust, sincere
affection, and wisest forbearance. For forty years Scattergood and Mandy
lived together as man and wife, and at the end both could look back
through the intimate years and say of the other that he had chosen well
his mate.

It may be thought that this bit of romance is dropped in here by legend
and history merely to amuse, or as a side light on the character of
Scattergood Baines. This is not so. We are forced by the facts to regard
the matter as an integral part of the business transaction related in
this narrative. Not a minor part, not an important part, but perhaps the
deciding factor....

John Bones, lawyer, age twenty-six, was a recent acquisition to
Coldriver village. Scattergood had watched the young man's comings and
goings, and had listened to his conversation. Early in November he went
to his bank and drew from deposit two hundred and fifty dollars.... Then
he went to call on Bones.

"Mr. Bones," he said, "folks says old Clayt Mosier's a client of
your'n."

"He's given me some business, Mr. Baines."

"Uh-huh!... Somethin' to do with title to a piece of timber over
Higgins's Bridge way, wa'n't it?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Baines, but I guess you'll have to ask Mr. Mosier about
that."

"Huh!... Mosier hain't apt to tell _me_. Seems like I was sort of
int'rested in that thing. I can't manage nohow to git the facts, so I
thought I'd talk to you."

"I can't help you. I have no right to talk about a client's confidential
matters."

"To be sure.... How's business?"

"Not very good."

"Not gittin' rich, eh?"

Young Bones looked unhappy, for making both ends meet was a problem he
had not mastered as yet.

Scattergood got up, closed the door, and walked softly back to the desk.
He drew from his pocket the roll of bills, and spread them out in
alluring pattern.

"Them's your'n," said he.

"Mine? How? What for?"

"I'm swappin' with you."

"For what, Mr. Baines?" A slight perspiration was noticeable on young
Lawyer Bones's brow.

"Information," said Scattergood, looking him in the eye. As the young
man did not speak, Scattergood continued, "about Mosier's title matter."

For an instant the young man stood irresolute; then he reached slowly
over, gathered up the money into a neat roll--while Scattergood watched
him intently--and then, with suddenly set teeth, hurled the roll into
Scattergood's face, and leaped around the desk.

"You _git_!" he said, between his teeth. "Git, and take your filthy
money with you...."

Scattergood, who did not in the least look it, could move swiftly. The
young lawyer was abruptly interrupted in his pastime of ejecting
Scattergood forcibly. He found himself seized by his wrists and held as
if he had shoved his arms into steel clamps.

"Set," said Scattergood, "and be sociable.... And keep the money. It's
your'n. You're hired. I guess you're the feller I'm aimin' to use."

He forced the struggling young man back into his chair, and released
him--grinning broadly, and not at all as a tempter should grin. "If
it'll relieve your conscience," he said, "I hain't got no more int'rest
in Mosier's affairs than I have in the emperor of the heathen Chinee....
But I _have_ got a heap of int'rest in a young feller that kin refuse a
wad of money when he can't pay his board bill. Maybe 'twan't jest a nice
way, but I had to find out. The man I'm needin' has to have a clost
mouth--and somethin' a mite better 'n that--gumption not to sell out....
Git the idee?"

"I--yes, I guess I do--but--"

"Any objections to workin' for me?"

"None."

"All right. Keep the money. When you've worked it up come for more. And,
young feller, if things turns out for me like I think they will, you're
goin' to quit bein' a lawyer one of these days. I'm a-goin' to need you
in my business. Come over to my store."

At the store Scattergood spread his maps before the young man, and
pointed to a certain spot. "There's about fifty different passels of
timber in that crotch. I don't aim to need 'em all to-day, but I
calc'late on gittin' a sort of fringe around the edge." He drew his
finger down the East Branch and up the West Branch in a sort of
horseshoe. "Your job's to git options on the fringe--in your own name.
Git the idee?"

"Yes."

"Git 'em cheap."

"Yes, sir."

"There's five thousand dollars on deposit in the bank in your name. Use
it." When Scattergood trusted a man he trusted him. "And now," he said,
"I calc'late to raise a little dust, so's you won't be noticed."

Scattergood's little dust consisted of allowing to be inserted in the
local paper an item announcing that Scattergood Baines had bought all
the stock and contracts of the Bailey Provision Company, which concern
was purveying food supplies to all the camps of Messrs. Crane and
Keith.... Then Scattergood settled back to watch the dust rise.

The dust arose, and filled the eyes and noses of Messrs. Crane and
Keith, as Scattergood expected, with the result that Mr. Crane was a
passenger on Scattergood's stage to Coldriver village.

"Howdy, Mr. Crane?" said Scattergood, as that gentleman belligerently
entered the hardware store. "I was sort of lookin' forward to seein'
some of you folks."

"Look here, Baines," said Crane, "what are you butting into our game
for? We let you get away with that other thing, but this last deal of
yours makes it look as if you were hunting trouble. You bought that
provision company to get a lever on us."

"Maybe so.... Maybe so, but I wouldn't get het up about it.... You see,
it's like this: you folks kind of did what I expected you'd do on that
dam and boom deal, and come pretty close to doin' me out of some
valuable property. I didn't get het up, though, I jest sort of sat
around and waited.... And it come out all right. Now, didn't it?"

"Bullhead luck."

"Maybe so.... Maybe so. Now, here's how I figger things to-day. You and
Keith hain't amiable about that deal, and you don't aim to let my dam
and boom company make any money out of you. I expect you can manage it.
If I was in your shoes, and was the kind of a man I judge you folks be,
I'd fix it so's the dam and boom company couldn't handle the drive. Buy
up the men, maybe, and start fights, and be sort of forced to take
charge so's to get my drive through. And then I'd sue for damages....
That's how I'd do. I calc'late that's about what you and Keith has in
mind, hain't it?"

Crane was purple with rage, but underneath his rage was a clammy layer
of unpleasant surprise that this mound of flabby fat should have had
such uncanny vision into his hardly creditable plans.

"You're crazy, man," he blustered.

"Maybe so.... Maybe so. Anyhow, I took out a mite of insurance ag'in'
sich a happenin'. I got me this here provision company to feed your
men.... Ever happen to think what would happen in the woods if your
lumberjacks run short of grub? Eh?... And suppose it happened, and your
men come bilin' out of camp, sore as bears with bee stings. What then,
eh? Couldn't git another crew this winter, maybe. Eh?"

Crane blustered. He threatened legal measures, but Scattergood pointed
out no legal measures could be taken until he failed to deliver
supplies. Also, he directed Crane's attention to the fact that the
provision company was a corporation, and liable only to the extent of
its assets. "So, even if you got a judgment, you wouldn't collect enough
to make no profit. And your winter's cut would be off, and what logs you
got cut would rot in the woods. I calc'late you'd stand to git damaged
consid'able."

"What's your proposition?" spluttered Crane.

"Hain't got none.... You jest run back to Keith and repeat as much of
this here talk as you can remember. I'm goin' to be busy now.
Afternoon."

For two weeks Scattergood disappeared, and though Crane and Keith sought
him with fever in their blood, he was not to be found. He filled their
minds; he dominated their conversation; he gave them sleepless nights
and unpleasant days.... Their attention was effectively focused on the
emergency he had presented to them. Scattergood had kicked up an
effective dust.

At the end of two weeks Scattergood appeared again in town, and went
directly to Johnnie Bones's office. Scattergood now called his lawyer
Johnnie.

"Got 'em?" he asked.

"Not all. There's a fifteen-thousand-acre strip cutting right across
your horseshoe, from East to West Branch, and I couldn't touch it. I got
all the rest. That one belongs to a woman, and a more unreasonable
woman to try to do business with I never saw."

"Um!" said Scattergood. "Know where I been, Johnnie?"

"No, sir."

"Gittin' married."

"What?"

"Yes. Me 'n' the lady, we met by arrangement in Boston and got us a
preacher and done the job. Marriage, Johnnie, is a doggone solemn
matter."

"I've heard so," said the young man.

"Some day," said Scattergood, "I'm a-goin' to marry you off. Calculate I
got the girl in my eye now."

"I hope," Johnnie said, "that you'll be--er--very happy."

"Guess we'll manage so-so.... Now about them options, Johnnie. You make
tracks for the city and sort of edge up to Crane and Keith. Might start
by showin' 'em a deed for a mill site down across from theirs at the
railroad. Then you might start askin' questions like you was lookin' for
information. Guess that'll git up their curiosity some. Then you kin
spring your options on 'em.... When you've done that, come off and leave
'em sweatin'. And don't mention me. I hain't in this deal a-tall."

But before Johnnie could get to Crane and Keith, Crane and Keith came to
Scattergood.

"You've got some kind of a proposition in mind," said Keith, who did the
talking because he could keep his temper better than Crane. "What do you
want?"

"Make me an offer," said Scattergood.

"We'll buy your provision company--and give you a decent profit."

"Don't sound enticin'," said Scattergood, reaching down and loosening
his shoe. It was too cold to omit the wearing of heavy woolen socks, so
he could not twiddle his toes with perfect freedom, but he could
twiddle them some, and that helped his mental processes.

"Well, what do you want?"

"I'll sell the provision company's stock of provisions--and nothin'
more.... At a profit. You got to buy, 'cause you can't make arrangements
to git in grub before I bring on a famine for you.... And I got the grub
stored in warehouses. That's part of it. Second, I'll _lease_ you my
river for three years. You wasn't calc'latin' to pay for the use of it.
So you be obleeged to pay in advance. I figgered my profits on drivin'
at about two thousand this year. Give you a three-year lease for five
thousand. I hain't no hog.... Yes or no."

There was a brief conference. "Yes," was the answer.

"Cash," said Scattergood.

"You'll have to come to the city for it," Keith said, which Scattergood
was not unwilling to do. He returned with a certified check for
twenty-six thousand five hundred and twenty-four dollars and nineteen
cents, of which five thousand was rental of his river, and four thousand
and odd dollars were his profits on his provisions. Not a bad profit
from a dust-throwing project!

Meantime Johnnie paid his visit to Crane and Keith, and came home to
report.

"It hit them between wind and water," he said.

"Uh-huh!... What did you judge they had in mind?"

"They wanted to buy me out.... Of course I wouldn't sell. My clients
wanted that timber, and were going to work to build their mill.... The
last they said was that they were coming up to see me."

"Uh-huh! When they come, you mention about that strip of fifteen
thousand acres you couldn't buy, eh? Let on you couldn't get it."

Johnnie held Scattergood as he was going out. "I want to account for
that five thousand dollars you placed in my name."

"Go ahead. I hain't perventin' you."

"I got options on eighteen thousand six hundred acres of timber. The
options cost me twenty-one hundred and seventy dollars, and my expenses
were sixty-one dollars and a half."

"Um!... Cheap enough. What did the land cost an acre?"

"Averaged a dollar and seventy-five cents."

"Huh!... Not so bad. Now tend to Crane and his quiet friend."

They arrived in due time, accompanied by their lawyer.

"Mr. Bones," said the lawyer, "you have certain options that my clients
wish to purchase. Undoubtedly they were taken in good faith, but we
would like, before going farther, to know whom you are acting for."

"You can deal with me. I have full powers."

"You decline to disclose your principal?"

"Absolutely."

"Do I understand the project is to build a mill at once and start to cut
this timber?"

"That is my information."

"Aha!... May I ask how much land you have?"

Johnnie exhibited a map, on which was blocked off the timber in
question. "You see," he said, "there's one fifteen-thousand-acre strip I
couldn't get hold of. It cuts right across the triangle from river to
river."

Crane looked at Keith and Keith looked at Crane.

"It belongs to a woman who wouldn't do business," Johnnie added.

"What figure did you pay for the land?"

"That is hardly a fair question."

"What do you ask for your options? That's a fair question, isn't it?"
"They're not for sale."

"But we may make an offer. It might be profitable for your principals to
sell. My clients feel they need this property, lying as it does between
their holdings."

"I'll listen."

There followed whispered arguments among the three, resulting in an
offer of a dollar and seventy-five cents an acre for the whole
tract--exactly what Johnnie had agreed to pay.

"I said I'd listen," said Johnnie, "but I don't seem to hear anything."

Another conference and a bid of two dollars. Johnnie shrugged his
shoulders. Two dollars and a half an acre was finally offered, and then
Johnnie leaned forward and tapped with his finger on his desk. "If you
gentlemen mean business, let's talk business. I've got what you want.
You can't get it unless I want to sell, and I don't want to sell. I and
my clients know what that timber is worth to us, but any business man
will consider a quick profit if it is _enough_ profit. In five years
that timber will be worth five or six dollars standing; in fifteen years
it will be worth fifteen to twenty.... But if you want to buy to-day you
can have it for three dollars through and through."

"We've got to have it," said Crane, and Keith nodded.

"Cash," said Johnnie, for cash was a hobby of Scattergood's.

"Our bank has made arrangements with your local bank to give us what
money we need," said Keith.

And then, clattering upstairs, came a small boy. Without ceremony he
burst into the room. "Mr. Bones," he shouted, "I was sent to tell you
that strip of timber you tried to buy from the lady is for sale." Then
he whisked out of sight.

Johnnie shrugged his shoulders. "Costs me some profit," he said.
"Confound that woman!... Well, we can go to the bank and close this up.
Then you fellows can finish up by buying that last fifteen thousand
acres."

"You bet we will," said Crane, savagely.

At the bank fifty-five thousand eight hundred dollars in the form of a
certified check was deposited in the hands of the cashier to be paid to
Johnnie when he should deliver proper deeds to the property sold.... It
represented a profit of twenty-three thousand two hundred and fifty
dollars.

"Now for the other parcel," said Crane, and getting the information as
to ownership, he and his companions took buggy to the spot. It was a
comfortable farmhouse, white painted and agreeable to look upon, but the
pleasure of the view was ruined for Crane and Keith by reason of a bulky
figure standing on the porch in conversation with a woman.

"Baines!" ejaculated Crane. It sounded like a swear word as he said it.

The three rushed the piazza.

"Madam," said Crane, not deigning to recognize Scattergood's presence,
"you own a tract of timber--fifteen thousand acres. We hear it is for
sale. We want to buy it."

"This gentleman was just making me an offer for it," she said, pointing
to Scattergood.

"We raise his offer twenty-five cents an acre," said Crane, and drew
from his-pocket a huge roll of bills--it being his idea of the
psychology of women that the sight of actual money would have a
favorable effect.

"That makes two dollars an acre," said she, and looked at Scattergood.

"Two and a quarter," said he.

"Two and a half," roared Crane.

"Two seventy-five," said Scattergood. "Three dollars."

"Three ten," said Scattergood.

"Three and a quarter" said Crane. He glared at Scattergood. "If you want
it worse than that," he shouted, "why, confound you, you can have it!"

"I don't," said Scattergood, placidly.

The woman figured a moment. "That makes forty-eight thousand seven
hundred and fifty dollars," she said. "I kind of like even money. You
can have it for an even fifty thousand."

Scattergood looked at her and grinned. One might have detected
admiration in his eyes.

"Done," said Crane. "We'll get into town and close the deal, ma'am, if
you don't mind."

"Your buggy seems to be crowded," said Scattergood. "I'll drive the lady
in, if you want I should."

"We want nothing from you at all, Baines."

"All right," said Scattergood, placidly, and, getting into his buggy, he
drove away. He drove rapidly, and alighted at Johnnie Bones's office.
Presently he emerged, carrying a legal-appearing document in his hand,
and went across to the bank, where he handed the document to the
cashier.

Presently the parties appeared, entered the bank, and the cashier, upon
being directed, executed a certified check to the lady for fifty
thousand dollars. Then he handed it to her, and the deed to Mr. Crane.
"You see," said he, "we have the deed all ready for you."

"Yes," said Scattergood, stepping through the door. "I had it fixed up
for you. I aim to be prompt when I'm tendin' to my wife's business
matters. Gentlemen, I guess you hain't met Mrs. Baines real proper
yet...."

It was not a happy moment for Messrs. Crane and Keith, but they
weathered it, not suavely, not with complete dignity, but after a
fashion.... Their departure might, perhaps, have been termed brusque.

"Well, Scattergood," said Mandy, "it was a real good deal."

"The way you h'isted 'em to fifty thousand was what got my eye," he
said, proudly. "I wouldn't 'a' had the nerve."

"I knew they'd pay it," she said. "Seems like a reasonable profit,
though the land's been a-layin' there unproductive for thirty year.
Father, he give a thousand dollars for it, and the taxes must 'a' been a
couple of thousand more. Say forty-seven thousand dollars profit...."

"And I come out of the other deals perty fair. Made twenty-three
thousand off of the options, and nine or ten off of the other things.
Guess the Baines family's a matter of seventy-five thousand dollars
richer by a good day's work."

"But it can't lay idle," she said.

"Not a minnit. We'll buy that sixty thousand acres 'way back up the
river for sixty-six cents, like we planned, and have some workin'
capital.... And, Mandy, Crane and Keith hain't got that timber for
keeps. It's comin' back to us some of these days. I feel it in my
bones...."

"Kind of a nice wind-up for our honeymoon," said Mrs. Baines,
practically.



CHAPTER III

THE MOUNTAIN COMES TO SCATTERGOOD


Scattergood Baines was on his way to the city! An exclamation point
deserves to be placed after this because it rightly belongs in a class
with the statement that the mountain was coming to Mohammed. Scattergood
had fully as much in common with cities as eels with the Desert of
Sahara.

He had not started the journey brashly, on impulse, but after debate and
discussion with Mandy, his wife. Mandy's conclusion was that if
Scattergood _had_ to go to the city he might as well get at it and have
it over, exercising the care of an exceedingly prudent man in the
circumstances, and following minutely advice that would be forthcoming
from _her_. Undoubtedly, she thought, he could manage the matter and
return to Coldriver unscathed.

So Scattergood was clambering into the stage--his stage that plied
between Coldriver village and the railroad, twenty-four miles distant.
When he settled in his seat the stage sagged noticeably on that side,
for Scattergood added to his weight yearly as he added to his other
possessions. Mandy stood by, watching anxiously.

"Remember," said she, "I pinned your money in the right leg of your
pants, clost to the knee."

"Mandy," said he, confidentially, "I feel the lump of it. I hope I don't
have to git after it sudden. Dunno but I should have fetched along a
ferret to send up after it."

"Don't git friendly with no strangers--dressed-up ones, especial. And
never set down your valise. There's a white shirt and a collar and two
pairs of sox, and what not, in there. Make quite an object for some
sharper."

He nodded solemnly.

"If you git invited out to _his house_," she said, "it'll save you a
dollar hotel bill, anyhow, and be a heap sight safer."

"You're right, Mandy, as usual," he agreed. "G'by, Mandy. I calculate
you won't have no trouble mindin' the store."

"G'by, Scattergood," she said, dabbing at her eyes. "I'll be relieved to
see you gittin' back."

There seemed to be little sentiment in these, their words of parting,
but in reality it was an exceedingly sentimental passage for them.
Between Scattergood and his wife there was a deep, true, abiding
affection. Folks who regarded it as a business partnership--and there
were many of them--lacked the seeing eye.

The stage rattled off down the valley--Scattergood's valley. He had
invaded it some years before because valleys were his hobby and because
_this_ valley offered him the opportunity he had been searching for.
Scattergood knew what could be done with a valley, and he was busy doing
it, but he was only at the beginning. As he bumped along he could see
busy villages where only hamlets rested; he could see mills turning
timber into finished products; he could see business and life and
activity where there were only silence and rocks and trees. And where
ran the rutted mountain road, over which his stage was carrying him
uncomfortably, he could see the railroad that was to make his dream a
reality. He could see a railroad stretching all the way from Coldriver
village to the main line, and by virtue of this railroad Scattergood
would rule the valley.

He had arrived with forty-odd dollars in his pocket. His few years of
labor there, assisted by a wise and business-like marriage, had
increased that forty dollars to what some folks would call wealth.
First, he owned a prosperous hardware store. This was his business. It
netted him a couple of thousand dollars a year. The valley was his
avocation. It had netted him well over a hundred thousand dollars, most
of which was growing on the mountain sides in straight, clear spruce, in
birch, beech, and maple. It had netted him certain strategic holdings of
land along Coldriver itself, sites for future dams, for mills yet to be
built--for railroad yards, depots, and terminals. Quietly, almost
stealthily, he had gotten a hold on the valley. Now he was ready to grip
it with both hands and to make it his own.... That is why he journeyed
to the city.

He put his canvas telescope between his feet so that he could feel it.
It was as well, he determined, to practice caution where none was
needed, so he would be letter perfect in the art when he reached the
dangers of the city. Between Scattergood's shoes and the feet they
inclosed, were sox. Before his union with Mandy he had been a stranger
to such effeteness. Even now he was prone to discard them as soon as he
was out of range of her vision. To-day he had not escaped, for, warm as
the day was, heavy white woolen sox folded and festooned themselves
modishly over the tops of his shoes. He could not wriggle a toe, which
made his mental processes difficult, for his toes were first aids to his
brain.

However, he was going to visit a railroad president, and railroad
presidents were said by Mandy to go in for style. Scattergood mournfully
arose to the necessities of the situation.

The twenty-four-mile ride was not long to Scattergood, for he occupied
it by studying again every inch of his valley. He never tired of
studying it. As the law book to the lawyer so the valley was to
Scattergood--something never to be laid aside, something to be kept
fresh in mind and never neglected. He never passed the length of it
without seeing a new possibility.

Scattergood flagged the train. The four-hour ride to the city he
occupied in talking to the conductor or brake-man or any member of the
train's crew he could engage in conversation. He was asking them about
their jobs, what they did, and why. He was asking question after
question about railroads and railroading, in his quaint, characteristic
manner. It was his intention to own a railroad, and he was at work
finding out how the thing was done.

Next morning at seven he was on hand at the terminal offices of the G.
and B. An hour later minor employees began to arrive.

"Young feller," he said, accosting a pleasant-faced boy, "where d'you
calc'late I'll find Mr. Castle?"

"President Castle?" asked the boy.

"That's the feller," said Scattergood.

"About now he'll be eating grapefruit and poached egg," said the boy.

"Don't he work none durin' the day?"

The boy laughed good-humoredly. "He gets down about nine thirty, and
when he don't go off somewheres he's mostly here till four--except
between one and two, when he's at lunch."

"Gosh!" said Scattergood. "Must be wearin' him to the bone. 'Most five
hours a day he sticks to it. Bear up under it perty well, young feller,
does he? Keep his health and strength?"

"He works enough to get paid fifty thousand a year for it," said the
boy.

"That settles it," said Scattergood. "I've picked my job. I'm a-goin' to
be a railroad president." He put his canvas telescope down, and placed a
heavy foot on it for safety. "Calc'late I kin sit here and wait, can't
I?"

The boy nodded and went on. During the next hour more than one dozen
young men and women passed that spot to eye with appreciation the caller
who waited for Mr. Castle. Scattergood was unaware of their scrutiny,
for he was building a railroad down his valley--a railroad of which he
was the president.

Scattergood looked frequently at a big, open-faced, silver watch which
was connected to his vest in pickpocket-proof fashion with a braided
leather thong. When it told him nine thirty had arrived, he got up, his
telescope in his hand, and ambled heavily down the corridor. He poked
his head in at an open door, and called, amiably, "Kin anybody tell me
where to find Mr. Castle?"

He was directed, and presently opened a door marked "President's
Office." The room within did not contain the president. It was crossed
by a railing, behind which sat an office boy. Behind him was a
stenographer.

"President in?" asked Scattergood.

The boy looked at him severely, and replied, shortly, that the president
was busy.

"Havin' only five hours to do all his work," said Scattergood, "I
calc'lated he _would_ be some took up. Tell him Scattergood Baines wants
to have a talk to him, sonny."

"Have an appointment?"

"No, sonny," said Scattergood, "but if you don't scamper into his room
fairly _spry_, the seat of your pants is goin' to have an appointment
with my hand." He leaned over the railing as he said it, and the boy,
regarding Scattergood's face a moment, arose and whisked into the next
room.

Shortly there appeared a youngish man, constructed by nature to adorn
wearing apparel.

"Be you Mr. Castle?" asked Scattergood.

"I'm his secretary. What do you want?"

"Young man, I'm disapp'inted. When I see you I figgered you must be
president of the railroad or the Queen of Sheeby. I want to see Mr.
Castle."

"What is your business with him?"

"'Tain't fit for young ears to listen to," said Scattergood.

"If you have any business with Mr. Castle, state it to me."

"Um!... I come quite consid'able of a distance to see _him_--which I
calc'late to _do_." He reached over, with astonishing suddenness in one
so bulky, and twirled the secretary about with his ham of a hand. At the
same time he leaned against the gate, which was not fastened to restrain
such a weight. "Now, forrard march, young feller. Lead the way. I'm
follerin' you." And thus Scattergood entered the presence.

He saw behind a huge, flat desk a very thin man, who leaned forward,
clutching his temples as though to restrain within bounds the machinery
of the brain inside. It was President Castle's habitual posture when
working. The temples and dome of the head seemed to bulge, as if there
was too much inside for the strength of the restraining walls. The
president looked up and fastened eyes that themselves bulged from
hollowed sockets. It was the face of a man who ran his mental dynamo at
top speed in defiance of nature's laws against speeding.

"Well?" he snapped. "_Well--well_?"

"Name's Scattergood Baines. Figger to build a railroad. Want to see you
about it," said Scattergood, succinctly.

"Not interested. Busy. Get out," said Castle.

Scattergood dropped the secretary, and lumbered up to the president's
desk. He leaned over it heavily. "I've come to see you about this here
thing," he said, quietly. "Either you'll talk to me about it _now_, or
I'll have to sort of arrange so that you'll come to _me_, askin' to talk
about it, later. Now you kin save both our time."

Castle regarded Scattergood with eyes that seemed to burn with
unnatural nervous energy--it was a brief scrutiny. "Clear out," he said
to his secretary. "Sit down," to Scattergood.

"Obleeged," said Scattergood. "I'm figgerin' on buildin' a railroad down
Coldriver Valley from Coldriver to connect with the G. and B. narrow
gauge. Carry freight and passengers. Want you to agree about train
service, freight transfer, buildin' a station, and sich matters."

Here was a man who could get down to business, President Castle
perceived, and who could state his business clearly and to the point.

"I know the valley. Been talking about it. Where do you come in?"

"I calculate to build the road."

"For Crane and Keith?"

"Eh?"

"They're the men backing it, aren't they? In to see me about it last
week."

Crane and Keith! Scattergood's career in the valley had been one of
warfare with Crane and Keith. He had beaten them with his dam and boom
company; he had beaten them in certain stumpage operations. Now they
were after his railroad and his valley.

"Um!..." he said, and reached down mechanically to loosen his shoe. Here
was need for careful thought.

"I gave them all necessary information," said the president.

"Don't concern me none," said Scattergood. "This here is to be _my_
railroad, and I'm the feller that's goin' to own and run it. Crane and
Keith hain't in it at all."

"You're too late. The G. and B. has agreed to handle their freight and
to stop passengers at their station. Tentatively agreed to lease and
operate the road when built.... Good morning." "I calculate there's
room for argument," said Scattergood. "I own right consid'able of that
right of way."

"Railroad can take it under the right of eminent domain," said the
president.

"Kin one railroad take from another one?" asked Scattergood, a bit
anxiously.

"No."

"Um!... Wa-al, you see, Mr. Castle, I got me a charter to build this
railroad. Legislature up and give me one."

"Makes no difference. We've made an agreement with Crane and Keith which
_stands_. You can't build your road, whatever you've got. Frankly, we
won't tolerate a road there that we don't control. Good morning."

"That final, Mr. President?"

"Absolutely."

"If I was to build in spite of you I calc'late you'd fix things so's
runnin' it wouldn't do much good to me, eh? Stop no trains for me, and
sich like?"

"Exactly."

"Um!... Mornin', Mr. President. If you ever git up to Coldriver don't go
to the hotel. Come right to my house. Mandy'll be glad to see you.
Mornin'."

Scattergood and Johnnie Bones, the young lawyer whom Scattergood had
taken to his heart, were studying a railway map of the state with
special reference to the G. & B. It showed them that the G. & B.
traversed a southerly corner of the state and had within its boundaries
some forty miles of track.

"The idee," said Scattergood, "is to make that forty mile of track
consid'able more of a worry to Castle than all the rest of his
railroad."

"Meddling with the railroads is a dangerous pastime," said Johnnie.
"Besides, how can you manage it?"

"We got a legislature, hain't we?"

"Yes, but the boys feel pretty friendly to the railroads, I
understand."

"Feel perty friendly to me, too," said Scattergood.

"I doubt if you could pass any legislation they wanted to fight hard."

"Um!... I'll look out for that end, Johnnie. Now what I want is for you
to draw up a bill for me that'll sort of irritate 'em where irritation
does the most hurt--which, I calc'late, is in the pocketbook. Here's my
notion: To make a pop'lar measure of it; somethin' that'll appeal to the
folks. We kin git the papers to start a holler and have folks demandin'
action of their representatives, and sich like. Taxes! That'll fetch 'em
every time."

"Yes," said Johnnie, dubiously, "but--"

"You _listen_" said Scattergood. "It stands to reason that the state
don't realize much out of that there forty mile of track. The G. and B.
gits the use of the state, so to speak, without payin' a fair rent for
it. You draw up a bill pervidin' that the railroad has got to pay a fee
of, say a dollar, for every passenger car it runs over them forty miles,
and fifty cents for every freight car. That'll mount to a consid'able
sum every year, eh?"

"It'll amount to so much," said Johnnie, gazing ruefully at his client,
"that there'll be the devil to pay. You'll pull every railroad in the
state down around your ears."

"Let 'em drop."

"And I don't know if the law'll hold water--even if you got it passed.
It's darn-fool legislation, Mr. Baines--but some darn-fool legislation
_sticks_. I don't believe this would, but it _might_."

"That's plenty to suit me," said Scattergood, slipping on his shoes and
standing up. "You git at it.... And say," he said, as a sort of
afterthought, "I want to git through a leetle bill for my stage line.
Here's about it. Won't take more'n fifty words." He handed Johnnie a
slip, crumpled and grimy, with lead-pencil notes on. "This won't cause
no trouble, anyhow."

Scattergood went back to his hardware store and sat down in his
reinforced armchair on the piazza. As he sat there young Jim Hands drove
up with his girl, alighted, and went into the ice-cream parlor for
refreshment. Scattergood studied the rig. It lacked something to give it
the final touch of style dear to the country youth.

Scattergood got up, and ambled into his store, returning with a
resplendent buggy whip--one with a white silk bow tied above its handle.
This he placed in the socket on the dashboard. Then he resumed his
chair. Presently Jim emerged with his girl and helped her into the rig.
He noticed the whip, took it out of its place, and examined it; swished
it through the air to try its excellence.

"Mighty nice gad," said Scattergood.

"Where in tunket did it come from?" asked Jim.

"I stuck it there. Looked to me like a rig sich as your'n needed a good
whip to set it off. I jest put it there to see how it looked."

Jim glanced at his girl, scratched the back of his suntanned neck, and
felt in his pocket.

"Calc'late I _did_ need a whip," he said. "How much is sich whips
fetchin'?"

"I kin give you that one a might lower 'n usual. It'll be two dollars to
you, seem's you got sich a purty girl in the buggy."

The girl giggled, Jim flushed, and fished out two one-dollar bills,
which he passed over to Scattergood. Then, whip in hand, he drove off
with a flourish. Scattergood pocketed the money serenely. It was by
methods such as this that he did, in his hardware store, double the
business such a store in such a locality normally accounted for.
Scattergood's most outstanding quality was that he never let a business
opportunity slip--large or small--and that he manufactured for himself
fully half of his business opportunities. He had lifted retail
salesmanship to the rank of an art.

Again he got up and went inside, where he wrote a letter to a certain
wholesale house with whom his account was large. The letter said he had
pressing need for half a dozen railroad rails of certain size and
weight, and didn't know where to get them, and would the recipient find
them and ship them at once.

Presently Tim Plant, teamster, drove by, and Scattergood hailed him.

"Tim," he said, "you owe me a leetle bill. This hain't a dun, but I got
a mite of work to be done, and seein' things wasn't brisk with you, I
figgered you might want to work it out--jest to keep busy."

"Sure," said Tim.

Whereupon Scattergood elevated himself to the seat beside Tim, and was
driven to the spot he had selected for the Coldriver terminal of his
railroad.

"I want about a hunderd feet graded along here," he said, "to lay rails
on."

"Rails!... Gosh! Scattergood, you hain't thinkin' of buildin' a
railroad, be you?"

"Shucks!" said Scattergood. "I jest got a half dozen rails comin', and I
figgered I'd like to see how they'd look all laid down on the spot. Give
folks an idee how a railroad 'u'd look if there was one."

In which manner Scattergood collected a doubtful bill, obtained a
quantity of labor at what might be called wholesale rates--and actually
started work on his railroad. Actual, patent for the world to see. The
railroad was begun. Not Crane & Keith, not President Castle, not a court
in the world could deny that actual construction had begun. Scattergood
was insuring himself against possible steps by the enemy to nullify his
charter.

"What's this here _eminent domain_?" Scattergood asked Johnnie Bones.

"It's a legal thing that allows railroads to take land necessary to its
operation--paying for it, of course."

"Anybody's land?"

"Yes."

"Crane and Keith, f'r instance?"

"Yes."

"Um!... Have to be right of way, or jest land for railroad yards, or to
build railroad buildin's on?"

"Any land _necessary_ to a railroad."

"Um!... Who says if it's necessary?"

"The courts."

"How'd you git at it?"

"Start what are called condemnation proceedings."

"All right, Johnnie, start me some."

"Against whom, and for what, Mr. Baines?"

"Against Crane and Keith, to git their land down at the G. and B. All
their mill yards, you know. Don't want the mill buildin'. They're
welcome to that. Jest their yards."

"But they can't run the mill without the log yard and the yard to pile
out their lumber."

"Be too bad, wouldn't it? Calc'late I'm a heap sorry for Crane and
Keith. Them fellers arouses my sympathy mighty frequent."

"But you're not a railroad, Mr. Baines."

"Yes I be, Johnnie. To-morrow I'll be layin' rails to prove it."

"But you own land right adjoining Crane and Keith's yards. Plenty of
it."

"Not plenty, Johnnie.... Not plenty. As long as Crane and Keith owns
_anything_ in this neighborhood I hain't got plenty of it. Get the idee?"

"You want to run them out?"

"Wa-al, they hain't been exactly friendly to me. I like to dwell among
friends, Johnnie. Lately they been makin' a sight of trouble for me.
Seems like I ought to sort of return the favor. 'Tain't jest spite,
Johnnie. Spite's a luxury I can't afford if there hain't a money profit
in it. Seems like there might be a dollar or two in this here
proceedin'--if handled jest right."

Johnnie didn't see it, but then he failed to see the profitable object
in a great many things that Scattergood undertook. It was not his
business to see, but to carry out promptly and efficiently Scattergood's
directions. The time had not yet arrived when Johnnie was Scattergood's
right hand, as in the bigger days that lay ahead.

"Didn't know Crane's sister married President Castle of the G. and B.,
did you, Johnnie?"

"No. What has that to do with it?"

"Consid'able.... Consid'able. Goes some ways toward provin' to me I was
expected to call on Castle and that things was arranged on purpose.
Proves to my satisfaction that Crane and Keith went out of their way to
start this rumpus with me.... You start them condemnation proceedin's as
quick as you kin."

Johnnie started them. Scattergood waited a few days; watched with
interest the laying of the first rails of the Coldriver Railroad, and
then made the day's drive to the state capital with drafts of his pair
of bills in his pocket. He hunted up the representative from his
town--Amri Striker by name.

"Amri," said he, "how's your disposition these days, eh? Feel like doin'
favors?"

"Guess a lot of us boys feel like doin' favors for you, Scattergood."
Which was not short of the truth, for Scattergood had been studying the
science of politics as it was practiced in his state and putting to
practical use his education. Indeed, he added to the science not a few
contrivances characteristic of himself, which made the old-timers
scratch their heads and admit that a new man had arisen who must be
reckoned with. Not yet did Scattergood hold the state in the hollow of
his hand, naming governors, senators, directing legislation, as he did
when his years were heavier on his shoulders. Probably, however, there
was no single individual in the commonwealth who could exert as much
influence as he. If there was a single man to compare with him it was
Lafe Siggins, from the northern part of the state. All men admitted that
a partnership between Scattergood and Lafe would be unbeatable.

"Got a bill I want introduced, Amri," said Scattergood.

"Let's see her, Scattergood."

Amri read the bill; then he turned around in his chair and looked out of
the window. Then he walked to the door and opened it suddenly, and
peered up and down the hall.

"The dum thing's loaded with dynamite," he said, when he came back.

"Calc'lated on some explosion," said Scattergood. "But I calc'late the
folks'll be for it. Shouldn't be s'prised if the feller who introduced
it and made a fight for it would stand mighty well, back home. Might git
to be Senator, Amri. No tellin'."

"Can't no sich bill be passed. The boys likes their passes, and I guess
there's some that gits more than passes out of the railroads."

"If this bill's introduced, Amri," said Scattergood, solemnly, "there'll
be a chance for some of the boys to fat up their savings'
account--pervidin' there's a good chance of its passin'. The
railroads'll git scairt and send quite a bank roll up this way."

"You bet," said Amri, with watering mouth.

"Lafe in town?"

"Come in last week."

"Lafe, I understand, hain't in politics for fun."

"Lafe's in right where he kin git the most the quickest."

"Run out and git him to step up here," said Scattergood.

In half an hour Lafe Siggins, tall, bony, long, and solemn of face,
stepped into the room, and closed the door after him cautiously.

"Howdy, Scattergood!" he said.

"Howdy, Lafe!... Want your backin' for a pop'lar measure. I've up and
invented a new way of taxin' a railroad."

Lafe started for the door. "Afternoon," he said, with a tone of
finality.

"But," said Scattergood, "I figger you to do the fightin' for the
railroads--reapin' whatever benefits you can figger out of it for
yourself."

Lafe paused, considered, and returned. "What's the idee?" he asked.

"I jest don't want this bill to pass too easy," said Scattergood,
soberly, but with a twinkle in his eye.

"It wouldn't," said Lafe.

"Um!... Railroads is more liberal, hain't they, when there's a good
chance of their gittin' licked? Suppose this come to a fight, and it
looked like they was goin' to git the worst of it. Supposin' the outcome
hung on two or three votes, eh? And them votes looked dubious."

Lafe pressed his thin lips together.

"I guess I kin account for near half of the boys, Lafe, and I guess you
kin line up clost to half with the railroads, can't you? Well, you don't
stand to lose nothin', do you? All we got to do is keep them decidin'
votes where we want 'em." Then he leaned over and whispered in Lafe's
ear briefly.

Lafe's thin lips curved upward a trifle at the ends. "Scattergood,"
said he, "this here's an idee. Never recollect nothin' resemblin' it
since I been in politics. What _you_ after?"

"Jest pleasure, Lafe.... Jest pleasure. Is it a deal?"

"It's a deal."

"Amri outside?"

"Standin' guard, Scattergood."

"When you go out send him in."

Amri opened the door that Lafe closed behind him.

"All fixed," said Scattergood. "I want to see these boys to-night."
Scattergood handed Amri a list of names. "And say, Amri, here's a leetle
bill you might jest slip along quick. Don't amount to nothin', but it
might help me some. Like to git the Governor's signature to it as soon
as it kin be done."

Amri read it cautiously. It was just a harmless little measure having to
do with stage lines. "All right," he said, carelessly.

Crane was in President Castle's office, and his demeanor was that of a
man who has heard disquieting news.

"I told you," he said, in tones of reproach, "that he wasn't safe to
monkey with. Keith and I thought he was just a fat, backwoods rube, but
we got burnt, and burnt good. We were going to let him alone, but you
got us into this--and now you've got to get us out again. Know what he's
done? Nothing much but start condemnation proceedings against us to take
our mill yards down on the railroad for a site for a depot and freight
sheds. That's all. And us with close to a hundred thousand tied up in
that mill. If he puts it through ..."

"He won't," snapped Castle.

"He's started to build his railroad. Actually laying rails."

"So I heard. That's to hold his charter.... Don't you worry. He can't
build that road, and you men will. As soon as I found out he had that
charter, and saw the possibilities of that valley, I made up my mind he
had to be eliminated. And he will be."

"Keith and I tried that."

"I saw him," said Castle. "He's no fool. You thought he was. I'm not
making any such mistake. Going after you the way he has proves it."

"And he'll be going after you, too. You want to mind your eye."

"It's a little different tackling the G. and B., don't you think? And I
doubt if he figures we're really backing you."

"What he figures and what you think he figures are mighty wide apart
sometimes. It cost me money to find that out."

The telephone interrupted. Castle answered: "Yes, Hammond, I can see you
now. What is it?... All right. Come right up." Hammond was the
railroad's general counsel.

He appeared presently.

"I thought we had the legislature up yonder tamed," he said, angrily, as
he entered the office.

"We have."

"Huh!... Take a look at this." He handed to the president Scattergood's
novel taxation, measure. "What you make of that? Who's behind it? What's
the game?"

Castle read it carefully; then he turned to Crane. "You win," he said,
succinctly. "Your friend Scattergood has brought the fight right on to
our front porch.... What about it, Hammond? Will such a tom-fool law
stand water?"

"Can't tell. My judgment is that it wouldn't, but it's such a fool law
that nobody can tell. And if it stuck--" He sucked in his breath. "It
would give every jay legisature a show to rough the railroads
beautifully."

"It would hurt.... Of course it mustn't pass. Get after it and don't let
any grass grow. Kill it in committee. That's the safest way.... Have
Lafe Siggins look after it."

Hammond bustled out, and Castle turned to his brother-in-law. "I
underestimated this Scattergood _some_," he said. "Now I'll go after
him.... For reasons of necessity we will discontinue all train service
at the flag station at the mouth of Coldriver Valley. That'll leave his
stage line dangling in the air. Just for a taste of what we can do....
I'll have Hammond look after that condemnation matter for you."

"He'll be coming around to offer to sidetrack that legislation if you'll
let him build his railroad."

"Probably. I guess we won't trade."

But Scattergood did not come around to offer a compromise. He seemed to
have lost interest in the matter wholly and to give his time solely to
his hardware store. But the Transient Car bill, as it came to be called,
began mysteriously to attract unprecedented attention. The press of the
state showed unusual interest in it. In short, it became the one big
measure of the legislative session. Everything else was secondary to it.
When a railroad measure is hotly discussed in every loafing place in a
state there is a measure that legislators handle with gloves. It is
loaded. When the home folks get really interested in a thing they are
apt to demand explanations. Wherefore it was but natural that President
Castle's experts found it impossible to strangle the bill in committee.
It was reported out, and then Hammond found it wise to journey to the
capital to take charge of things himself.

At the end of a week, Mr. Hammond, general counsel for the G. & B. and
expert handler of legislatures, was forced to write President Castle
that he faced a condition new in his broad experience.

"The chances," he said, "are more than even that this bill passes. Men
we have been able to depend on are refractory. Siggins is doing his
best, but so far he has been able to account for only forty-five per
cent of the votes. The strange thing about it," he finished, with
genuine amazement, "is that the other side doesn't seem to be spending a
penny."

Which was perfectly true. Neither in that fight nor in any of the scores
of legislative battles in which Scattergood took part in his after life
did he spend a dollar to buy a vote or to influence legislation. Perhaps
it was scruple on his part; perhaps economy; perhaps he felt that his
own peculiar methods were more efficacious than mere barter and sale.

From end to end, the state was in excitement over the measure. Skillful
work had made it seem a vital thing to the people, and hundreds of
letters and telegrams poured in to representatives. It looked as if
public opinion were overwhelmingly with the bill. It was Scattergood's
first use of the weapon of public opinion. In this battle he learned its
potentialities. Men who knew him well and were close to him in political
matters declare he became the most skillful creator of a fictitious
public opinion that ever lived in the state. It was in keeping with his
methods that he always seemed to be acting in response to a demand from
the public rather than that he excited the public to demand what
Scattergood wanted. But that was when Scattergood's hair was touched
with gray and his girth had increased by twoscore pounds.

"I can't find any trace of Scattergood Baines in this matter," Hammond
reported to President Castle.

That was true. Scattergood stayed at home, tending vigorously to his
hardware business. Representatives did not call on him; he did not call
on them. No trails led to his door.

President Castle had expected overtures from Scattergood, but none
materialized. To a man of Castle's experience this was more than
strange; it was uncanny. He began to consider the situation really
serious. Was the man so confident as his silence indicated?

"Get the votes," he wired succinctly to Hammond, and Hammond, reading
the message correctly, dipped into the emergency barrel of the railroad
with generous hands. Prosperity had come to that legislature. Yet he was
able, at the end of another two weeks, to guarantee six votes less than
a majority. The opposition had captured one more vote than he, and
needed but five to pass their measure. Hammond faced the task of
acquiring those five unplaced legislators, and of weaning one away from
Scattergood--and the bill was due to come up in the House in two days.

That day President Castle himself arrived in the capital, and, after
discussing the situation with Hammond, wired Scattergood, asking for an
appointment. The mountain was going to Mohammed. Scattergood replied not
a word.

"I calc'late," he said to Mandy, "that President Castle's raisin' him a
blister."

On the morning of the day on which the bill was to come to a vote
Scattergood appeared unostentatiously in the capital, but word of his
presence flashed from tongue to tongue with miraculous speed. Word of it
came to President Castle, who pocketed his pride for excellent business
reasons, and sent up his card to Scattergood's room.

"Guess I kin see him a minute," said Scattergood, and the president
ascended with thoughts in his heart which Scattergood was well able to
lead.

"Baines," said Castle, without preface, "what do you want?"

"Nothin' you've got, I calc'late," said Scattergood, serenely.

"You're back of this infernal bill. The railroads can't permit it to
pass. It won't pass."

"Then what you wastin' your time on me for?" Scattergood asked.

"If we let you build your infernal little railroad will you drop out of
this?"

"Hain't in it to speak of."

"Will you take your hands off--if we give you your railroad and
guarantee train service?"

"Can't seem to see my way clear."

"What do you gain by passing this bill? You're nothing ahead. It won't
give you your railroad. It won't give you anything."

"Calc'late you're right."

"Listen to reason, man. You want _something_. What is it?"

"Me?... Um!... I'm a plain kind of a man, Mr. President, with a plain
kind of a wife. Hain't never met Mandy, have you? Wa-al, her and me is
perty contented with life. We got a good hardware store ..."

"Rot! What do you want?"

Scattergood leaned forward, his round face, with its bulging cheeks, as
expressionless as some particularly big and ruddy apple.

"If you're achin' to do favors for me, Mr. President you kin drop in
along about supper time. Right now can't think of a thing you kin do for
me. But I'll try ... I'll spend the afternoon thinkin' over all the
things you might be able to do, and I'll try to pick one of 'em out....
I got to see a hardware salesman now. Afternoon Mr. President."

"Baines," said Castle, losing his temper for the first time in a dozen
years, "we'll smash you for this. We'll drive you out of the state.
Well--"

"Don't slam the door," said Scattergood, placidly; "it might disturb the
other folks in the hotel."

That afternoon the galleries of the House were jammed. Below, in their
seats, the legislators sat uncomfortably. There was a tenseness in the
air which made men's skin tingle. The Transient Car bill was about to
come to a vote. Everything had been done by both sides that could be
done. There could be no more outside interference; no more money
influence. It was all over. Now the matter was in the hands of those
uneasy men, who, even now, might hold steadfast to their principles or
to the money that had bought them or to the power that had compelled
them--or who might, for reasons secret to their several souls, change
sides with astonishing suddenness, upsetting all calculations. Such
things have been done.... But, even without the happening of the
unexpected, no man could say how the votes would fall. Neither side had
obtained a sure majority.

The preliminary formalities went forward. Then began the roll call, and
from his place in the gallery Hammond checked off on his list name after
name, as they voted yea or nay--and President Castle watched and kept
mental count. Scattergood was not present. The thing was even,
dangerously even. For every yea there sounded a balancing nay. The count
stood sixty-one for, sixty against ... with ten more votes to call....
With six votes to call the count was even.

"Whittaker," called the clerk's monotonous voice.

"Nay."

"Robbins."

"Nay."

"Baker."

"Nay."

"Hooper."

"Nay."

"Bolger."

"Nay."

"Brock."

"Nay."

The six final votes had been cast--and cast solidly against
Scattergood's bill. Scattergood was beaten, decisively, destructively
beaten. Not only was he defeated here, but he was smashed where the
damage was even more destructive--in his prestige. He was a discredited
political leader.... Lafe Siggins could not restrain a chuckle, for
Scattergood had played into his hands. Scattergood had allowed himself
to be eliminated from calculation in the state, leaving Siggins as sole,
undisputed, victorious boss. It had been a clever scheme that
Scattergood had outlined to Lafe--so clever that Lafe hadn't seen the
great good that lay in it for himself--until days later. He shrugged his
shoulders. It was just another case of a man unfamiliar with the game
overplaying his hand.

President Castle shook hands openly with Hammond. True, there was a
demonstration of disapproval from the gallery--but that was only the
people! It did not signify.

"We got him," said Castle.

"But it was a close squeak."

Castle looked grimly down on the representatives, now huddled together
in whispering groups.

"I don't often have the impulse to crow over a man," he said, "but this
Baines was so infernally cocky. He told me I might see him at six
o'clock and he'd tell me what I could do for him. Well, I'm going to see
him." His voice was grim and forbidding.

On the way they picked up Siggins and invited him to dinner. The three
went to the hotel, where, sitting calmly, placidly in the lobby, was
Scattergood.

Castle walked directly to him. "You were going to tell me what I could
do for you--at this hour, I believe."

"Did say somethin' like that."

Castle eyed Scattergood venomously, found him a hard man to crow over.
He admitted Scattergood to be a good loser.

"I expect you'll be asking favors for some time," Castle said, "and not
getting them. I told you we'd lick you--and we have. I told you we'd
smash you and drive you out of the state. We'll do that just as
surely ..."

"Maybe so," said Scattergood, phlegmatically. "Maybe so. Nobody kin
tell.... Howdy, Siggins! Lookin' mighty jubilant about somethin'. Glad
to see it.... And Mr. Hammond seems pleased, too. Done a good job of
work, didn't you? Bet your boss is pleased with you, eh?"

"When you're ready to turn your chunks of right of way over to Crane and
Keith, let them know," said Castle. "I guess the G. and B. loses
interest in you from this on--or it will presently."

"Jest a jiffy," said Scattergood, as the trio turned away. "Seems like
you was goin' to do a favor for me. Well, you hain't done it yet....
Guess I need a favor perty bad at this minute, eh? Wa-al, 'tain't a big
one. Jest sort of cast your eye over this here." Scattergood handed
Castle a folded paper of documentary appearance.

Castle snatched it and read it. It was brief. Not more than fifty words.
It was a copy of a bill having to do with stage lines, passed by both
Houses and signed by the Governor. It provided that wherever any stage
line or _other transportation company of whatsoever nature_ intersected
the line of a railroad or terminated on such line, the railroad should
be compelled to establish a regular station on demand, for the handling
of passengers and freight, and should stop all trains except through
trains, and should establish sidetracks for the handling and transfer of
freight.

A few formal words, backed by the authority of the state, compelling the
G. & B. to do all, and more than all, that Scattergood had requested of
them! A few words making possible Scattergood's railroad more surely
than agreement with President Castle could have made it!

"While you folks was busy with the Transient Car bill," Scattergood
said, amiably, "the boys sort of tended to this for me. If I'd thought
Hammond was int'rested I might have called it to his attention. But I
figgered he was paid to watch out for sich things, and I didn't want to
interfere none. Jest as well, I take it."

Castle was scowling at Hammond, momentarily at a loss for words. Siggins
was gazing at Scattergood with thin lips parted a trifle. His joy was
blanketed.

"Somethin' else," said Scattergood, looking from one to another, and
finally at Lafe. "Siggins figgered that my gittin' a beatin' on this
bill would sort of make him boss of the state. You see, Mr. President,
this here bill wasn't _meant_ to pass. It was fixed up for a couple of
reasons. One was to git something which I'll tell you about in a second.
Another was to make the boys in the House sort of prosperous like, and
grateful to me for gittin' 'em the prosperity--with the railroads payin'
for it. The last was to settle things between Lafe and me. I sort of
wanted Lafe and the boys in politics to understand which was which....
And they'll understand.... Now, Mr. President, the thing I wanted to git
was in two parts. First one was to git your attention on this here bill
so's you wouldn't notice my little stage-line thing. The other was
pretty nigh as valuable. I got it. It's a list of every man in this
legislature that took money for a vote on this thing, with how much
money he took and the hour and minute it was paid him--and _who by_.
Seems like I managed to git _your_ name, Mr. President, connected with
them last six votes that you took over body and britches this noon. And
I kin _prove_ every item of it.... With the folks around the state
feelin' like they do, I shouldn't be s'prised if I could make a heap of
trouble."

President Castle was a big man or he would not hold the position that
was his. He knew when a fight was over. "You win," he said, tersely.
"Name it."

"Two things. First off I want an agreement with your road, made by a
full vote of the board of directors, agreein' to do jest what this bill
pervides--in case of emergencies. And second, I want your folks should
handle the bonds of my railroad--construction bonds. Guess I could
manage it without, but I need my money for somethin' else. About two
hunderd thousand dollars' worth of bonds'll do it."

Castle shrugged his shoulders--seeing possibilities for the future.
However, he knew Scattergood had weighed those possibilities himself.

"Agreed," he said. There was a moment's silence. "By the way," he asked,
"what was the idea of the condemnation proceedings against Crane and
Keith?"

"Jest a mite of business. With the railroad goin', I need a good mill up
on a site I got below Coldriver. Seems like Crane and Keith got a might
timid, and yestiddy they up and sold out that mill to a friend of
mine--actin' for me--for fifty-five thousand dollars. Figger I got it
dirt cheap. Wuth close to a hunderd thousand, hain't it?... I'm goin' to
move it to Coldriver, lock, stock, and barrel."

"Baines," said Castle, presently, "the G. and B. will keep hands off
your valley. It will be better for us to work together than at odds.
Suppose we bury the hatchet and work for each other's interest.... I'm
paid to know a coming man when I see one."

"Was hopin' you'd see it that way, Mr. President. I hain't one that
hankers for strife ... not even with Lafe, here, if he can figger he's
willin' to admit what he's got to admit."

"I take my orders from you," said Lafe.

In which authentic manner Scattergood Baines, in one transaction, made
possible and financed his railroad, obtained his first mill, and became
undisputed political dictator of his state. Characteristically, there
was charged to expense for the whole transaction a sum that a very
ordinary man could earn in a week. Scattergood loved cheap results.



CHAPTER IV

HE DEALS IN MATCHMAKING


It is known to all the world that Scattergood came to own the stage line
that plied down the valley to the railroad, but minute research and a
sifting of dubious testimony was required to unearth the true details of
that transaction in which the peg leg of Deacon Pettybone figured in a
dominant manner.

Scattergood had long had his eye on the stage line, because his valley,
the Coldriver Valley, was dominated by it. Transportation was king, and
Scattergood knew that if his vision of developing that valley and of
acquiring riches for himself out of the development were ever to become
actuality, he must first control the means of transporting passengers
and commodities. But the stage line was not to be acquired, because
Deacon Pettybone and Elder Hooper, who owned it in partnership, had not
been on speaking terms for twenty years. So bitter was the feud that
either would have borne cheerfully a loss to prevent the other from
making a profit. The stage line was a worry and an annoyance to both of
them, but neither of them would sell, because he was afraid his enemy
might derive some advantage.

As Scattergood well knew, the feud had its inception in religion as
religion is practiced in that community. Deacon Pettybone had been born
a Congregationalist. Elder Hooper was the sturdiest pillar of the
Congregationalist church. They had grown up together from boyhood, as
chums, and later as business partners, but at the mature age of forty
Deacon Pettybone had attended a revival service in the Baptist church.
When he came out of that service the mischief was done--he had been
converted to the tenets of immersion and straightway withdrew from the
church of his birth to enter the fold of its bitterest rival in
Coldriver, if it were possible for the Baptists to be bitterer rivals of
the Congregationalist than the Methodists and Universalists were.
Coldriver's population was less than four hundred. It required a great
deal of religion to get that four hundred safely past the snares and
pitfalls of Coldriver, for there were no fewer than five full-grown
churches, of which the Roman Catholic was the fifth, and a body of folks
who met in one another's houses of a Sabbath under the denomination of
the United Brethren. Five churches worshiped God through the crackling
parchment of their mortgages, when one, or at most two, might have
pointed the way to heaven free and clear, and with no worries over
semiannual interest.

When Pettybone turned apostate there was such a commotion as had never
before disturbed Coldriver; it subsided, and was forgotten as the years
dragged on, by all but Pettybone and Hooper, who continued tenaciously
to hate each other with a bitter hatred--and the more so that their
financial affairs were so inextricably mingled.

Even when Pettybone's leg was mashed by a log, and he lay between life
and death, there was no hint of a reconciliation; and when Pettybone
appeared again on Coldriver's streets, hobbling on a peg leg of his own
fashioning, the fires of vindictiveness burned higher and hotter than
ever.

The situation would have been hopeless to anybody not possessed of
Scattergood's optimism and resource. It is reported that Scattergood
propounded a saying early in his career at Coldriver, to this effect:

"Anybody kin git anythin' done if he wants it hard enough. Trouble is,
most folks hain't got a sufficient capacity for wantin'."

Scattergood's capacity for wanting was abnormal, and his ability to want
until he got was what made him the remarkable figure in the life of his
state that he was destined to become.

Scattergood was sitting on the piazza of his hardware store, basking in
the sunshine, and gazing up the dusty road which passed between
Coldriver's business structures, and disappeared over the hill. His eyes
were half closed, and his bulk, which later became phenomenal, filled
comfortably the specially reinforced chair which came to be called his
throne. Pliny Pickett slouched around the corner, and, as he approached,
the unmistakable odor of horses became noticeable. Inhabitants of
Coldriver knew when Pliny came into a room even if their backs were
turned.

"Mornin', Pliny," said Scattergood.

"Mornin', Scattergood."

"Fetch any passengers?"

"Drummer 'n' a fat woman to visit the Bogles. Say, Scattergood, looks
like you're goin' to have competition."

"Um!... Don't say."

"Hardware," said Pliny, nasally. "Station's heaped with it. Every
merchant in town's layin' in a stock."

"Do tell," said Scattergood, without emotion. "Kettleman and Locker?"
They were the grocers.

Pliny nodded. "An' Lumley and Penny mixin' it in with dry goods, and
Atwell minglin' it with clothin'."

Scattergood reached down and unlaced his shoes. His mind worked more
freely when his toes were unconfined, so that he might wriggle them as
he reasoned. Pliny knew the sign and grinned.

"Much 'bleeged," said Scattergood, and Pliny moved off.

"Pliny," said Scattergood.

"Eh?"

"Was you thinkin' of buyin' a stove?"

"No."

"Could think about it, couldn't you?"

"Might manage it."

"Folks thinkin' of buyin' stoves gits prices, don't they? Kind of
inquires around to see where they kin buy cheapest?"

"Most does."

"G'-by, Pliny."

"G'-by, Scattergood."

Something of the sort was not unanticipated by Scattergood. He knew the
merchants of the town had not forgiven him for once getting decidedly
the better of them in a certain transaction, and he knew now that they
had combined against him. Their idea was transparent to him. It was
their hope to put him out of business by adding hardware to their stocks
and to sell it at cost, until he gave up the ship. They could afford it.
It would not interfere with their normal profits.

Scattergood wriggled his toes furiously and squinted his eyes. They
alighted on a young man in clerical black, who crossed the square from
the post office. It was no other than Jason Hooper, son of Elder Hooper,
who had been educated to the ministry and had recently come to occupy
the pulpit of his father's church--a pleasant and worthy young man.
Almost simultaneously Scattergood's eyes perceived Selina Pettybone,
daughter of Deacon Pettybone, just entering the post office.

"Purty as a picture," said Scattergood to himself, and then he chuckled.

The young minister nodded to Scattergood, and Scattergood spoke in
return. "Mornin', Parson," he said. "How d'you find business?"

"Business?" The young man looked a bit startled.

"Oh, how's the marryin' industry, f'r instance? Brisk?"

Jason smiled. "It might be brisker."

"Um!... Maybe folks figgers you hain't had enough experience to do their
marryin' jest accordin' to rule--seein' 's you hain't married yourself."

Jason blushed and frowned. This was a subject that had been brought to
his attention insistently; he had been informed that a minister should
marry, and there were several marriageable daughters in his church.

"You aren't going to pick a wife for me, too?" he said, with a rueful
smile.

"Dunno but I might," said Scattergood. "Got any preferences as to weight
and color?"

"My only preference is to have them all--a long way off," said the young
minister.

"Some day you'll have opposite leanin's. There'll be a girl you'll want
to snuggle right clost to.... G'-by, Parson, I'll keep my eyes open for
you."

A few days later consignments of hardware began to arrive, and
Scattergood, sitting on the piazza of his store, watched them carried
with much ostentation into the stores of his rivals. It was noticed that
he scarcely had his shoes on during this week and that he even walked to
the post office barefooted, squirming his delighted toes into the warm
sand with apparent enjoyment. Immediately Locker and Kettleman and
Lumley and the rest made it known to Coldriver and environs that they
were dealing in hardware and not for profit, but merely as a convenience
to their patrons. They emphasized the fact that they would sell hardware
at cost, and exhibited prices which Scattergood studied and saw that he
could not meet.

The town watched the affair, expecting much of Scattergood, but he made
no move. Apparently he was contented to sit on his piazza and see
customers passing him by for the alluring bargains offered beyond.
Coldriver was disappointed in Scattergood, and it said so, much as a
disgruntled critic will speak of an actor who has made a flat failure in
a favorite piece.

On a certain afternoon Scattergood was seen to accost Selina Pettybone,
who paused, and drew nearer, showing signs of regret and interest.

"Seliny," said Scattergood, "you're one of them Daughters of Dorcas, or
half sisters of Mehitable, or somethin' religious and charitable, hain't
you?"

"Yes," said Selina, with a smile.

"What does sich folks do when they git to hear of a case of misery and
distress?"

"They do what they can, Mr. Baines," said Selina.

"Um!... If you heard Xenophon Banks was took sick of a busted leg, and
his wife was dead these two year, and a 'leven-year-old girl was tryin'
to nuss her pa and look after four more, what d'ye calc'late you'd
calc'late?"

"I'd calculate," said Selina, "that I ought to go out there to the farm
and see about it at once."

"Usin' your buggy or mine?"

"Mine, thank you."

"G'-by, Selina."

"G'-by, Mr. Baines," she said, and laughed.

Scattergood watched her disappear in the direction of her home and then
got up leisurely and ambled toward the Congregational parsonage, in
which young Jason Hooper lived in solitary dignity. Mr. Hooper was in
his study.

"Howdy, Parson?" said Scattergood.

"How do you do, Mr. Baines?"

"Bible say anythin' regardin' visitin' the sick an' ministerin' to the
oppressed?"

"A great deal, Mr. Baines."

"Think it's meant, eh? Or was it put there jest to preach about?"

"It is meant, undoubtedly."

"For ministers?"

"Yes."

"Um!... Xenophon Banks busted his leg. 'Leven-year-old daughter's tryin'
to carry him and four other childern on to her back, so to speak."

"I'll go at once, Mr. Baines."

Scattergood fidgeted. "Calculate Xenophon wasn't forehanded. Six mouths
to feed. _More mealtimes than meals_," he said, and fumbled in his
pocket. He was visibly embarrassed. "Here's ten dollars that was give me
to be used for sich a purpose. The feller that give it let on he wanted
it to come like it was give by the church, and him not mentioned. Git
the idee?"

"I get the idea perfectly," said young Mr. Hooper, his face lighting as
he surveyed Scattergood with a whimsical twinkle--and as he saw this
scheming, money-hungry, power-hungry man in a new light. "The man may
feel confident I shall not betray him."

"If I was a minister in sich a case I wouldn't forgit some stick candy
for them five childern. Seems like candy's 'most necessary for sich. Dum
foolishness, but keeps 'em quiet.... Git a big bag of candy.... And, if
I was doin' this, I wouldn't let no grass grow under my feet."

So it happened that Selina Pettybone and the Rev. Jason Hooper,
respectively, daughter of the leading deacon of the Baptist church, and
parson of the Congregational church, arrived at Xenophon Banks's little
house within ten minutes of each other, and each was greatly embarrassed
by the other's presence, for the family feud had compelled them to be
coldly distant to each other all of their short lives.... But there was
much to do, and embarrassment of such kind between an unusually pretty
and wholesome girl, and a reasonably well-looking and kindly young man,
is not an emotion that cannot be easily dissipated.

About a week later Scattergood chanced to pass Deacon Pettybone's
house, and saw the old gentleman sitting on the front porch, shaping a
large piece of wood with a draw-shave.

"Afternoon, Deacon," said Scattergood.

"Set and rest your legs," said the deacon. "Jest puttin' the finishin'
touches on this timber leg of mine."

"Sturdy-lookin' leg, Deacon."

"Best I ever made. Always calc'late to keep one ahead. Soon's one leg
wears out and I put on the spare one, I set to work fashionin' another,
to have by me. Always manage to figger some improvement."

"More int'restin' than cuttin' out ax handles," said Scattergood.

The deacon looked his scorn. "Anybody kin cut an ax handle, but lemme
tell you it takes study and figgerin' and _brains_ to turn out a timber
leg that's full as good if not better 'n a real one.... I aim to varnish
this here leg and hang it in the harness room. Wisht I could keep it by
me in the kitchen, but the ol' woman says it sp'iles her appetite.
Wimmin is full of notions. Claims she'd go crazy with a leg a-hangin'
back of the stove, and some day she'd up and slam it in the oven and
serve it up for a roast. You kin thank your stars you hain't got
wimmin's notions to worry you, Scattergood."

"How d'ye stand on the proposition to have the town build a sidewalk up
the hill apast the Congregational church, Deacon?"

The deacon pounded on the porch with his nearly finished leg, and grew
red in the face. "All the doin's of ol' man Hooper. Connivin' and
squillickin' around for his own ends. Lemme tell you, Scattergood, no
town meetin' of Coldriver'll ever vote sich a steal only over my dead
body. Jest you tell that far and wide."

Business had been almost at a standstill for Scattergood. The only
sales he made were of small articles his competitors had forgotten or
neglected to stock. He had not taken in enough money for a month to pay
for the wear and tear on his fixtures. Coldriver was coming to set him
down as a failure and a black disappointment; but it marveled that he
took no action whatever and showed no signs of worry. His eyes were as
blue and his manner as humorous as it had ever been. Most of his
conversation seemed to be on the subject of the sidewalk past the
Congregational church, and it was carried on in low tones, and never to
more than one individual at a time. If those individuals had compared
notes they would have been astonished. Scattergood's attitude on the
matter was widely different, depending on whether he talked with Baptist
or Congregationalist. One might almost say that both sides were coming
to him for advice on how to conduct its campaign to carry the town
meeting--and one would have been right.

The matter had developed into the hottest political issue Coldriver had
ever seen. No presidential election had come near to rivaling it, and
the local-option issue had stirred up fewer heartburnings and given rise
to less bellowing and to fewer hard words. The town meeting was less
than a month away.

But even in the heat of the campaign Scattergood found time to drive out
to Xenophon Banks's. The road to Banks's was fairly well traveled these
days, for there was hardly a day that did not see either Selina
Pettybone or Parson Hooper driving out to the little house, and,
strangely enough, the days on which both were present appeared to be in
the majority. Scattergood dropped out now and then with pockets full of
stick candy, which he never delivered himself, but which he always
handed to the minister or to Selina to be given anonymously after he was
gone. He seemed as much interested in watching Selina and Jason as he
was in talking with Xenophon, and he might have been perceived
frequently to nod his head with satisfaction--especially on the day when
he heard Jason call Selina by her first name, and on the other day when
he saw the young minister retaining Selina's hand longer than he should
have done in saying good afternoon. That day Jason drove back to town
with Scattergood.

"Likely-lookin' girl--Seliny," observed Scattergood.

"Beautiful," said the parson, and Scattergood grinned.

"Um!... Single ministers is a menace. Yes, sir, churches has busted up
on account of their ministers not bein' married."

There was no reply.

"But I calculate you're different. You're jest made and created to be an
old batch. Never seen sich a feller. Couldn't no girl interest you, not
if she was the Queen of Sheeby."

"Mr. Baines," said Jason, after a pause, "I'm very miserable. I--I think
I shall resign from my church and go away."

"Sandrich Islands or somewheres--missionery feller?" said Scattergood.

"I--why, yes, that's what I'll do.... I wish I'd never seen her." Then
he corrected himself sharply. "No, I don't. I'm glad I've seen her. I've
got that much, anyhow. I can always remember her and think about how
sweet and beautiful she was--"

"And die at the age of eighty with her name comin' from your lips on
your last breath. To be sure.... Seems to me, though, it would be a
sight more satisfyin' to live them fifty-odd years _with_ her and raise
up a fam'ly, and git some benefits out of that sweetness and beauty and
sich like, besides mullin' 'em over in your mind. Speakin' of Seliny,
wasn't you?"

"Yes."

"Don't hanker to marry her?"

"Mr. Baines--"

"Then why in tunket don't you?"

"She's a Baptist."

"White, hain't she?"

"Yes."

"Respectable?"

"Of course, sir."

"Don't call to mind no state law ag'in' Congregationalists marryin'
Baptists."

"My congregation wouldn't allow it."

"Hain't never seen no deed of sale of you to your congregation."

"Her father would never permit it?"

"Huh!..."

"And she's an obedient daughter."

"Has she said so?"

"Y-yes."

"Ho! Kind of human, after all, hain't you? Look pleased when she said
it?"

"She cried."

"Comfort her--some."

"I--She--she loves me, Mr. Baines."

"Well, I snum! Kind of disobedient to love you, hain't it? Knows her
father 'd be set ag'in' it?"

"Yes, but she can't help that."

"Why?"

"You--why, you _fall_ in love! You don't do it on purpose, Mr. Baines.
It just comes to you."

"From where?" said Scattergood, abruptly.

The young minister stared.

"Who's to blame for there bein' love?" Scattergood demanded.

After a pause the young man answered. "God," he said. "Why does He send
it?"

"So that people will marry, and the love will keep them together, strong
to bear the trials and labors of life. I think love is a kind of wages
that God pays to men and women for living on His earth."

"Um!... Does He send love sort of helter-skelter and hit-or-miss, or
does He aim it at certain folks?"

"I have often preached that marriages were made in heaven."

"Then it's a kind of a command, hain't it?"

"Yes."

"Which d'ye calculate is the wust disobedience? To refuse to obey an
order sich as this, or to disobey a parent that runs counter to the
wants of the Almighty?"

The young man's face was alight with happiness. "Mr. Baines," he said,
"I'm grateful to you. I shall marry Selina."

"Maybe," said Scattergood. "It runs in my mind you got to have dealin's
with Deacon Pettybone, and the deacon always figgers that the news he
gits from heaven is fresher and more dependable than what anybody else
gits. Might ask him and see."

A few days after that Coldriver knew that Parson Hooper had asked the
hand of Selina from her father and had been rejected with language and
almost with violence. Then a strange thing took place. If Jason had
married Selina without opposition, his congregation would have been
enraged. He might have been forced from his pulpit. Now it regarded him
as a martyr, and with clacking tongues and singleness of purpose it
espoused his cause and declared that their minister was good enough to
marry any girl alive, and that Deacon Pettybone was a mean,
narrow-minded, bigoted, cantankerous old grampus. The thing became a
public question, second in importance only to the sidewalk.

"Hold your hosses," Scattergood advised Jason. "Let's see what a mite
of dickerin' and persuasion'll do with the deacon. Then, if measures
fails, my advice to you as a human bein' and a citizen is to git Seliny
into a buckboard and run off with her. But hold on a spell."

So Jason held on, and the town meeting approached, and Scattergood
continued to sit in idleness on the piazza of his store and twiddle his
bare toes in the sunshine. Deacon Pettybone was a busy man, organizing
the forces of the Baptists, and seeking diligently to round up the votes
of neutrals. Elder Hooper, the leader of the Congregationalist party,
was equally occupied, and no man might hazard a guess at the outcome of
the affair.

"This here is a great principle," said Deacon Pettybone, "and men gives
their lives and sacrifices their families for sich. I'm a-goin' to fight
to the last gasp."

"Don't blame ye a mite," said Scattergood. "If them Congregationalists
rule this town meetin' you might's well throw up your hands. They'll
rule the town forever."

"It's got to be pervented."

"And nobody but you kin manage it," said Scattergood. "The hull thing
rests with you. Why, if you was sick so's to be absent from that meetin'
the Congregationalists 'u'd win, hands down."

"I b'lieve it," said the deacon, "and nothin' on earth'll keep me
away--nothin'. If I was a-layin' at my last gasp I'd git myself carried
there."

"Deacon," said Scattergood, solemnly, "much is dependin' on you.
Coldriver's fort'nit to have sich a man at the helm."

Even the cribbage game under the barber shop was suspended, and the
cribbage game was an institution. It was the deacon's one shortcoming,
but even there he strove to get the better of the enemy, for the two men
who were considered his only worthy antagonists at the game were
Congregationalists. The three bickered and quarreled and threatened
each other with violence, but they played daily. There were few
afternoons when a ring of spectators did not surround the table,
breathlessly watching the champions. It was the great local sporting
event, and who shall quarrel with the good deacon for touching cards in
the innocent game of cribbage? Certainly his pastor did not do so, nor
did the fellow members of his congregation. Indeed, there was even pride
in his prowess.

But the game was discontinued, and Hamilcar Jones and Tilley Newcamp
were loud in their excoriations of their late antagonist. The
Congregationalists had no hotter adherents than they, nor none who
entered the conflict with more bitterness of spirit. Scattergood saw to
it that he encountered them on the evening before the momentous town
meeting.

"Evenin', Ham. Evening Tilley."

"Howdy, Scattergood?"

"How's things lookin' for to-morrer?"

"Mighty even, Scattergood. If 'twan't for that ol' gallus Pettybone,
we'd git that sidewalk with votes to spare."

"Um!... If he was absent from the meetin' things might git to happen."

"Ho! Tie him to home, and there wouldn't even be a fight."

"Got a wooden leg, hain't he?"

"Wisht he had three."

"Got two, one hangin' in the harness room. Harness room's never locked.
If 'twas a boy could squirm through the window."

"What of it?"

"Nothin'. Jest happened to think of it.... Ever stop to think what a
comical thing it 'u'd be if somebody was to ketch a wooden-legged man
and saw his leg off about halfway up? Jest lay him across a saw buck
and saw her off while he hollered and fit. Most comical notion I ever
had."

"Would make a feller laugh."

"More 'special if his spare leg was stole away and he didn't have
nothin' but the sawed-off one. Sich a man would have difficulty gittin'
any place he wanted to git to.... G'-by, Ham. G'-by, Tilley. Hope the
meetin' comes out right to-morrer."

Scattergood went inside and looked at his bank book. In two months his
deposits from sales had amounted to something like a hundred dollars.
The situation spelled nothing less than bankruptcy, but Scattergood
replaced the book and waddled out to his piazza, where he sat in the
cool of the evening, twiddling his toes and looking from the store of
one competitor to the store of another, reflectively.

At a late hour a small boy named Newcamp delivered a bulky package to
Scattergood, and vanished into the darkness. The package was about large
enough to contain a timber leg.

The town seethed with politics next morning, and the deacon was in the
center of it. The meeting was called for ten o'clock. At nine thirty a
small boy wriggled up to the deacon and whispered in his ear. The deacon
quickly made his way out of the crowd and down the stairs into the
basement room under the barber shop--for news had been given him of a
chance to swap for votes. He burst into the room, and stopped, frowning,
for Tilley Newcamp stood before him. Hamilcar Jones was not at the
moment visible, because he was behind the door, which he slammed shut
and locked.

No word was uttered, but a Trojan struggle ensued. It was two against
one, but even those odds did not daunt the deacon. It was full five
minutes before he was flat on his back, panting and uttering such
burning and searing words as might properly fall from the lips of a
Baptist deacon. Tilley Newcamp, who was heavy, sat on his chest.
Hamilcar Jones dragged up a saw buck and laid the deacon's timber leg
across it.... The deacon saw and comprehended, and lifted up his voice.
Another five minutes were consumed in returning him to quiescence. And
then the saw did its work, while the deacon breathed threats of blood
and torture, and regretted that his religion prevented him from using
language better suited to his purpose. The leg was severed; a fragment
full ten inches long fell from the end, and the deacon's assailants drew
away, their fell purpose accomplished.

There was a rapping on the door. It was Scattergood Baines, and he was
admitted. His face was full of wrath as he gazed within, and he quivered
with fury as he ordered the two miscreants out of the place.

"What's this, Deacon, what's this?" he demanded.

The deacon told him at length, and fluently.

"I was jest in time. Now we kin send for that spare leg and you kin git
to the meetin'. Lucky you had that spare leg."

The deacon sat on the floor, speechless now, staring down at all that
remained to him of his timber leg. Scattergood, with great show of
solicitude, dispatched a youngster to the deacon's house for his extra
limb. He returned empty-handed.

"This here boy says the leg hain't in the harness room. Sure you left it
there?"

Again the deacon found his voice, and his words were to the general
effect that the blame swizzled, ornery, ill-sired, and regrettably
reared pew-gags had, in defiance of law and order, stolen and made away
with his leg--and what was he to do?

"Deacon, you can't go like that. If this story got into the meetin' it
would do fer you. You'd git laughed out. Them Congregationalists 'u'd
win. You got to have a sound leg to travel on, and I don't see but one
way to git it."

"How's that?"

"Call in young Parson Hooper and make him force them adherents of hisn
to give it up."

Scattergood did not wait for the permission he surmised would not be
given, but sent word for Jason Hooper, who came, saw, and was most
remarkably astonished.

"Parson," said Scattergood, "this here outrage is onendurable. Some of
you Congregationers done it, and stole his other leg. As leader of your
flock and a honest man, it's your bounden duty to git it back."

"But I--I know nothing about it. What can I do? I--There isn't a thing
you can do."

"Deacon," said Scattergood, "there hain't a soul in the world can git
back your leg in time but this young man. Maybe he don't know he kin do
it, but he kin. Hain't you got no offer to make?"

The parson started to say something, but Scattergood silenced him with a
waggle of the head.

"I got to git to that meetin'," bellowed the deacon. "There hain't
nothin' in the world I wouldn't give to git there, and git there whole
and hearty, and so's not to be laughed at."

"Remind you of any leetle want of yourn?" asked Scattergood. He took the
young man aside and whispered to him.

"Deacon," he said, presently, "Parson Hooper says as how he don't see no
reason for interferin' and helpin' his enemy." The parson had said
nothing of the sort. "But I kin see a reason, Deacon. If this here young
man was a member of your family, so to speak, and was related to you
clost by ties of love and marriage, I don't see how he'd have a right
to hold his hand.... Want this man's daughter f'r your wedded wife,
don't you?"

"Yes," said the parson, faintly.

"Hear that, Deacon? Hear that?"

"Never, by the hornswoggled whale that swallered Jonah."

"Meetin's about to start," said Scattergood, looking at his watch.

The deacon sweated and bellowed, but Scattergood adroitly waved the red
flag of animosity before his eyes, and pictured black ruin and
defeat--until the deacon was ready to surrender life itself.

"Git me my leg," he shouted, "and you kin have anythin'.... Git me my
leg."

"Is it a promise, Deacon? Calculate it's a promise?"

"I promise. I promise, solemn."

Scattergood whispered again in the pastor's ear, who stuttered and
flushed and choked, and hurried out of the room, presently to reappear
with the deacon's spare leg.

"Now, young feller, make your preparations for that there weddin'....
Scoot."

It is of record that the deacon arrived, like Sheridan at Winchester, in
the nick of time; that he rallied his flustered cohorts and led them to
triumph--and then regretted the bargain he had made. But it was too
late. He could not draw back. Wife and daughter and townsfolk were all
against him, and he could not withstand the pressure.

And then....

"Parson," said Scattergood, "your pa and the deacon ought to make up."

"They'll never do it, Mr. Baines."

"Deacon'll have to let your pa come to the weddin'. There'll be makin'
up and reconciliations when there's a grandson, but I can't wait. I'm in
a all-fired hurry. You go to the deacon and tell him your pa sent him
to say that he's ready to bury the hatchet and begs the deacon's pardon
for everythin'--everythin'."

"But it wouldn't be true."

"It's got to be true. Hain't I sayin' it's true? And then you go to your
pa and tell him the deacon wants to make up, and begs _his_ pardon out
and out. Tell both of 'em to be at my store at three o'clock, but don't
tell neither t'other's to be there."

At three o'clock Deacon Pettybone and Elder Hooper came face to face in
Scattergood's place of business.

"Howdy, gents?" said Scattergood. "Lookin' forward to bein' mutual
grandads, I calc'late. Must be quite a feelin' to know you're in line to
be a grandad."

"Huh!" grunted the deacon.

"Wumph!" coughed the elder.

"To think of you old coots dandlin' a baby on your knees--and buyin' it
pep'mint candy and the Lord knows what, and walkin' down the street,
each of you holdin' one of its hands and it walkin' betwixt you....
Dummed if I don't congratulate you."

The deacon looked at the elder and the elder looked at the deacon. They
grinned, frostily at first, then more broadly.

"By hek! Eph," said the deacon.

"I'll be snummed!" said the elder, and they shook hands there and then.

"Step back here a minute. I got a mite of business. You won't want the
nuisance of that stage line--with a grandson to fetch up. I'm kinder
hankerin' to run the thing--not that it'll be much of an investment."

"What you offerin'?" asked the deacon.

Scattergood mentioned the sum. "Cash," he concluded.

"Calc'late we better sell," said the elder.

An hour later, with the papers in his pocket to prove ownership,
Scattergood visited the stores of his rivals, Locker, Kettleman, Lumley,
and Penny.

"Gentlemen," he said, "you been a-tryin' to crowd me out of business. I
hain't made a cent of profit f'r two months, and I calc'late on a profit
of two hunderd and fifty a month. Jest gimme your check for five hunderd
dollars and I'll take your stocks of hardware off'n your hands at, say,
fifty cents on the dollar, and we'll call it a day."

"Scattergood, we got you where we want you. You can't hold out another
sixty days."

"Maybe. But, gentlemen, I guess we kin do business. I jest bought the
only means of transportin' goods, wares, and merchandise into Coldriver.
Beginnin' now, rates for freight goes up. I've studied the law, and
there hain't no way to pervent me. I kin charge what I want for
freighting and what I want will be so much not a one of you kin do
business.... And I'll put in groceries and what not, myself. Gittin' my
freight free, I calc'late to under-sell you quite consid'able.... Kin we
do business?"

The enemy went into executive session. They surrendered. Scattergood
pocketed a check for five hundred dollars, and came into possession of a
fine stock of hardware at fifty cents on the dollar. Likewise, he owned
the stage line and franchise, controlling the only right of way by which
a railroad could reach up the valley. It had required politics, marrying
and giving in marriage, and patience, to accomplish it, but it was done.

That evening Mrs. Hooper and Mrs. Pettybone, childhood friends, long
separated by the feud, stopped to speak to Scattergood.

"Nobody knows how we appreciate what you done Minnie and me," said Mrs.
Pettybone.

"Blessed is the peacemaker," said Mrs. Hooper.

"Thankee, ladies. I don't mind bein' a peacemaker any time--when I kin
do it at a profit."

"It's always done at a profit, Mr. Baines, if you read the Good Book.
This day you laid up a treasure in heaven."

"Trouble with depositin' profits in heaven," said Scattergood, very
soberly, "is that you got to wait so tarnation long to draw your
int'rest."



CHAPTER V

HE MAKES IT ROUND NUMBERS


"It's a telegram from Johnnie Bones," said Scattergood Baines to his
wife, Mandy, as he tore open the yellow envelope and read the brief
message it contained.

"Telegram!" said Mandy. "Why didn't he write? Them telegrams come
high.... Huh! Jest one word--'Come.' Costs as much to send ten as it
does one, don't it?"

"Identical," said Scattergood.

"Then," said Mandy, sharply, "if he was bound to telegraph why didn't he
git his money's worth?"

"I calc'late he thought he said a plenty," Scattergood replied. "Johnnie
he don't like to put no more in writin' that's apt to pass from hand to
hand than he's obleeged to.... Mandy, looks like we better start for
home."

"What d'you s'pose it kin be?" Mandy asked, already busy laying clothing
in their canvas telescope. "Mostly telegrams announces death or
sickness."

"I kin think of sixty-nine things it _might_ be," said Scattergood, "but
I got a feelin' it hain't none of 'em."

"We shouldn't of come away on this vacation," said Mandy. "Johnnie Bones
is too young a boy to leave in charge."

"Johnnie Bones is a dum good lawyer, Mandy, and a dum far-seein' young
man. I don't calc'late Johnnie's done us no harm. Hain't no hurry,
Mandy. We can't git a train home for five hours."

"We'll be settin' right in the depot waitin' for it," said Mandy, who
declined to take chances. "Be sure you keep your money in the pants
pocket on the side I'm walkin' on. Pickpockets 'u'd have some difficulty
gittin' past me."

"Only thing ag'in' Johnnie Bones," said Scattergood, "is that he hain't
a first-rate hardware clerk."

Scattergood, in spite of the ownership of twenty-four miles of
narrow-gauge railroad, of a hundred-odd thousand acres of spruce, and of
a sawmill whose capacity was thirty thousand feet a day, persisted in
regarding these things as side lines, and in looking upon his little
hardware store in Coldriver as the vital business of his life. It was
now ten years since Scattergood had walked up Coldriver Valley to the
village of Coldriver. It was ten years since he had embarked on the
conquest of that desirable valley, with a total working capital of forty
dollars and some cents--and he not only controlled the valley's business
and timber and transportation, but generally supervised the politics of
the state. He could have borne up manfully if all of it were taken away
from him--excepting the hardware store. To have ill befall that would
have been disaster, indeed.

On the train Scattergood turned over a seat to have a resting place for
his feet, took off his shoes, displaying white woolen socks, a
refinement forced upon him by Mandy, and leaned back to doze and
speculate. When Mandy thought him safely asleep she covered his feet
with a paper, to conceal from the public view this evidence of a
character not overgiven to refinements. It is characteristic of
Scattergood that, though wide awake, he gave no sign of knowledge of
Mandy's act. Scattergood was thinking, and to think, with him, meant so
to unfetter his feet that he could wriggle his toes pleasurably.

Johnnie Bones was waiting for Scattergood at the station.

"Johnnie," said Scattergood, "did you sell that kitchen range to Sam
Kettleman?"

"Almost, Mr. Baines, almost. But when it came to unwrapping the weasel
skin and laying money on the counter, Sam guessed Mrs. Kettleman could
keep on cooking a spell with what she had."

"Johnnie," said Scattergood, "you're dum near perfect; but you got your
shortcomings. Hardware's one of 'em.... What about that telegram of
yourn?"

"Yes," said Mandy.

"Mr. Castle, president of the G. and B.--"

"I know what job he's holdin' down, Johnnie."

"--came to see you yesterday. I wouldn't tell him where you were, so he
had to tell me what he wanted. He wants to buy your railroad. Said to
have you wire him right off."

"Um!..." Scattergood walked deliberately, with heavy-footed stride, to
the telegraph operator, and wrote a brief but eminently characteristic
message. "I might," the telegram said to President Castle.

"Now, folks," he said, "we'll go up to the store and sort of figger on
what Castle's got in mind."

They sat down on the veranda, under the wooden awning, and Scattergood's
specially reinforced chair creaked under his great weight as he stooped
to remove his shoes. For a moment he wriggled his toes, just as a golfer
waggles his driver preparatory to the stroke. "Um!..." he said.

"Castle," said he, presently, "works for jest two objects--makin' money
and payin' off grudges. Most gen'ally he tries to figger so's to combine
'em."

Johnnie and Mandy waited. They knew better than to interrupt
Scattergood's train of thought. Had they done so he would have uttered
no rebuke, but would have hoisted himself out of his chair and would
have waddled away up the dusty street, and neither of them would ever
hear another word of the matter.

"He knows I wouldn't sell this road without gittin' money for it.
_Therefore_ he's figgerin' on makin' a lot of money out of it, or payin'
off a doggone big grudge.... Somebody we don't know about is calc'latin'
on movin' into this valley, Johnnie. Somebody that's goin' to do a heap
of shippin'--and that means timber cuttin'.... And it must be settled or
Castle wouldn't come out and offer to buy."

Johnnie and Mandy had followed the reasoning and nodded assent.

"What timber be they goin' to cut?" Scattergood poked a chubby finger at
Johnnie, who shook his head.

"The Goodhue tract, back of Tupper Falls. Uh-huh! Because there hain't
no other sizable tract that I hain't got strings on. And the mills,
whatever kind they be, will be at Tupper Falls. Mills _got_ to be there.
Can't git timber out to no other place. And, Johnnie, buyin' timber is a
heap more important and difficult than buyin' mill sites. Eh?...
Johnnie, you ketch the first train for Tupper Falls. I own a mite of
land along the railroad, Johnnie, but you buy all the rest from the
falls to the station. Not in my name, Johnnie. Git deeds to folks whose
names we're entitled to use--and the more deeds the better. Scoot."

"Now, Scattergood, don't go actin' hasty," said Mandy. "You don't
_know_--"

"The only thing I don't know, Mandy, is whether Johnnie 's too late to
buy that land. Knowin' nobody else wants it, and it hain't no good for
nothin' but what they want it for, these folks may not have bought
_yit_...."

Scattergood shouted suddenly at the passing drayman. "Hey, Pete.... Come
here and git a cookin' range and take it up to Sam Kettleman's house.
Git a man to help you. Tell Mis' Kettleman I sent it, and she's to try
it a week to see if she likes it. Set it up for her and all."

Scattergood settled back to watch with approval, while two men hoisted
the heavy stove on the wagon and drove away with it. Presently Sam
Kettleman appeared on the porch of his grocery across the street, and
Scattergood called to him: "Well, Sam, glad you decided to git the woman
a new stove. Shows you're up an' doin'. It's all set up by this time."

Sam stared a moment; then, smitten speechless, he rushed across the road
and stood, a picture of rage, glaring at Scattergood. "I didn't buy no
stove. You know dum well I didn't buy no stove. I can't afford no stove.
You jest git right up there and haul it back here, d'you hear me?"

"Well, now, Sam, don't it beat all--me makin' a mistake like that? Sure
I'll send after it, right off.... Now I won't have to order one special
for Locker." Locker was the rival grocer. "I kin haul this one right to
his house, and explain to him how he come to git it so soon. I'll say:
'Locker, we jest hauled this stove down from Sam Kettleman's. Had it all
set up there and then Sam he figgered it was too expensive a stove for
him and he couldn't afford it right now on account of business not bein'
brisk.'"

"Eh?" said Kettleman.

"'Twon't cause a mite of talk that anybody'll pay attention to.
Everybody knows what Locker's wife is. Tongue wagglin' at both ends. And
I'll take pains to conterdict whatever story she goes spreadin' about
you bein' too mean to git your wife things to do with in the kitchen,
and about how you're 'most bankrupt and ready to give up business.
Nobody'll b'lieve her, anyhow, Sam, but if they do I'll explain it to
'em."

"Now--"

"Locker's wife'll be glad to have it, too. She'd have to wait two
weeks for hers, and now she'll git it right off. Oven's cracked on hern,
and she allows she sp'iles every batch of bread she bakes--and her
pledged to furnish six loaves for the Methodist Ladies' Food Sale...."

"Scattergood Baines, if you dast touch my stove I'll have the law onto
you. You can't go enterin' my house and removin' things without my
permission, I kin tell you. Don't you try to forgit it, neither. If you
think you can gouge me out of my stove jest to make it more convenient
for Mis' Locker, you're thinkin' _wrong_...."

"'Tain't your stove till it's paid for, Sam."

"Then, by gum! it'll be mine darn quick. Thirty-eight dollars, was it?
Now you gimme a receipt.... Locker!..."

Scattergood waddled into the store, wrote a receipt, and put the money
in the safe. When Sam had recrossed the road again he turned to Johnnie
Bones. "Sellin' hard-ware's easy if you put your mind to it, Johnnie.
Trouble with you is you don't take no int'rest in it.... Next time
you'll know better. Train's goin' in fifteen minutes. Better hustle."

Next noon Scattergood was in his usual place on the piazza of his store
when the train came in. Presently Mr. Castle, president of the G. & B.,
came into view, and Scattergood closed his eyes as if enjoying a midday
snooze. Mr. Castle approached, stopped, regarded Scattergood with a
pucker of his thin lips, and said to himself that the man must be an
accident. It was one of Scattergood's most valuable qualities that his
appearance and manner gave that opinion to people, even when they had
suffered discomfiture at his hands. Mr. Castle coughed, and Scattergood
opened his eyes sleepily and peered over the rolls of fat that were his
cheeks.

"Howdy?" said Scattergood, not moving.

"Good day, Mr. Baines. You got my message?"

"Seein' as you got my reply to it, I must have," said Scattergood.

"Can we talk here?"

"I kin."

Mr. Castle looked about. No one was within earshot. He occupied a chair
at Scattergood's side.

"I understand your message to mean that you are willing to sell your
railroad."

"I calculate that message meant jest what it said."

"I know what your railroad cost you--almost to a penny."

"Uh-huh!" said Scattergood, without interest.

"I'll tell you why I want it. My idea is to extend it through to
Humboldt--twenty miles. May have to tunnel Hopper Mountain, but it will
give me a short line to compete with the V. and M. from Montreal."

"To be sure," said Scattergood, who knew well that such an extension was
not only impracticable from the point of view of engineering, but also
from the standpoint of traffic to be obtained. "Good idee."

"I'll pay you cost and a profit of twenty-five thousand dollars."

"Hain't interested special," said Scattergood. "I git that much fun out
of railroadin'."

"It isn't paying interest on your investment."

"I calculate it's goin' to. I'm aimin' to see it does."

"Set a figure yourself."

"Hain't got no figger in mind."

"Mr. Baines, I'll be frank with you. I want your railroad."

"So I jedged," said Scattergood.

"I _need_ it. I'll pay you a profit of fifty thousand--and that's my
last word."

Scattergood closed his eyes, opened them again, and sat erect. "Now that
business is over with," he said, "better come up and set down to table
with Mandy and me. Mandy's cookin' is considered some better 'n at the
hotel."

"You refuse?"

"I was wonderin'," said Scattergood, "if you had any notion if I could
buy the Goodhue timber reasonable?"

"Eh?" said Mr. Castle, startled. "The Goodhue timber?"

"Back of Tupper Falls."

"Who told--" Mr. Castle snapped his teeth together sharply.

"Leetle bird," said Scattergood. "Dinner's ready."

"There might come a time when you'd be mighty glad to sell for less than
I'm offering."

"Once there was a boy," said Scattergood, "and he up and says to another
boy, 'I kin lick you,' The story come to me that the boy sort of
overestimated his weight.'"

"I'm not threatening you," said Castle.

"It's a privilege I don't deny to nobody.... Say, Mr. Castle, be you
goin' into this deal to make money or to take somebody's scalp?"

"Baines," said Mr. Castle, "I'll buy you the best box of cigars in
Boston if you'll tell me where you get your information."

"Hatch it," said Scattergood, gravely. "Jest set patient onto the egg,
and perty soon the shell busts and there stands the information all
fluffy and wabbly and ready to grow up into a chicken if it's used
right."

"Will you answer a fair question?"

"If our idees of the fairness of it agrees with one another."

"Has McKettrick got to you first?"

It was the information Scattergood wanted, but his dumplinglike face
showed no sign of satisfaction. As a matter of fact, he did not know who
McKettrick was--but he could find out. "Don't seem to recall any
conversation with him," he said, cautiously, leaving Castle to believe
what he desired--and Castle believed.

"He was keeping his plans almighty dark. I don't understand his spilling
them to you. It cost _me_ money to find out."

"Dinner's waitin'," said Scattergood.

"Did he offer to buy your road?"

"If he did," said Scattergood, "it didn't come to nothin'."

It will be observed that Scattergood had obtained important information,
though affording none, and in addition had surrounded himself with a
haze through which President Castle was unable to see clearly. Castle
knew less after the interview than he had known when he came;
Scattergood had discovered all he hoped to discover.

Johnnie Bones came home next noon and reported to Scattergood that he
had been partially successful.

"I couldn't get all of that flat," he said. "Somebody's been buying on
the quiet. Three strips from the river to the hill were not to be had,
but I bought four strips, two at the ends and two between the pieces I
couldn't get."

"Better call it a side of bacon, Johnnie. Strip of fat and strip of
lean. Dunno but it's better as it lays. Hear anythin' about the Goodhue
tract?"

"Somebody's been cruising it for a month back--without a brass band."

"Um!... Send a wire, Johnnie. Lumberman's Trust Company, Boston. Set
price Goodhue tract...."

Johnnie telephoned the wire. Two hours later the answer came, "Goodhue
tract no longer in our hands."

"Did you ever wonder, Johnnie, why I never got int'rested into that
Goodhue timber?"

Johnnie shook his head.

"Because," said Scattergood, "you got to log it by rail. Forty thousand
acres of it, and no stream runnin' through it big enough to drive logs
down.... But I got an idee, Johnnie, that loggin' by rail can be done
economical. Know who bought that timber?"

"No."

"McKettrick of the Seaboard Box and Paper Company, biggest concern of
the kind in America. Calc'late they'll be makin' pulp here to ship to
their paper mills. Calculate I'll give 'em a commodity rate of around
seven cents to the G. and B. Johnnie, our orchard's goin' to begin
givin' a crop. That'll give us sixteen dollars and eighty cents for
haulin' a minimum car of twenty-four thousand. And this hain't goin' to
be any one-car mill, neither. Five cars a day'll be increasin' our
revenue twenty-four thousand three hunderd dollars a year--on outgoin'
freight. Then there's incomin' freight to figger. All we got to do is
set still and take _that_. Beauty of controllin' the transportation of a
region. But it seems like we ought to git more out of it than that--if
we stir around some. Especial when you come to consider that McKettrick
and Castle is flyin' at each other's throats. It's a situation, Johnnie,
that man owes a duty to himself to take advantage of."

Scattergood went back to his hardware store and seated himself on the
piazza. Presently a team drove up from down the valley and a tall, gaunt
individual, with hair of the color of a dead leaf, alighted.

"I was told I could find a man named Scattergood Baines here," he said.

"You kin," Scattergood replied.

"Where is he?"

"Sich as he is," said Scattergood, "you see him."

The man looked from Scattergood's shoeless feet and white woolen socks
to Scattergood's shabby, baggy trousers, and then on upward, by slow and
disapproving degrees, to Scattergood's guileless face, and there the
scrutiny stopped.

"Some mistake," he said; "I want the owner of the Coldriver Valley
Railroad."

"It may be a mistake," said Scattergood. "Calculate it _is_ a mistake to
own a railroad. But 'tain't the only mistake I ever made."

"_You_ own the road?"

"Calculate to."

Evidently the stranger was not impressed by Scattergood in a manner to
arouse him to a notable exertion of courtesy. He allowed it to appear in
his manner that he set a light value on Scattergood; in fact, that it
was not exactly pleasant to him to be compelled to do business with such
a human being. Scattergood's eyes twinkled and he wriggled his toes.

"Well, Baines," said the stranger, "I want to talk business to you."

"Step into my private office," said Scattergood, motioning to a chair at
his side, "and rest your legs."

"I'm thinking of establishing a plant below," said the stranger. "A very
considerable plant. In studying the situation it seems as if your
railroad might be run as an adjunct to my business. I suppose it can be
bought."

"Supposing" said Scattergood, "is free as air."

"I'll take it off your hands at a fair figure."

"'Tain't layin' heavy on my hands," said Scattergood.

"How much did it cost you?"

"A heap less 'n I'll sell for.... You hain't mentioned your name."

"McKettrick."

Scattergood nodded.

"I'd sell to a man of that name."

"How much?"

"One million dollars," said Scattergood.

"You're--you're _crazy_," said McKettrick. It was an exclamation of
disgust, a statement of belief, and a cry of pain. "I might go a quarter
of a million."

"This here's a one-price store--marked plain on the goods. Customers is
requested not to haggle."

"You're not serious?"

"One million dollars."

"I'll build a road down my side of the river."

"Maybe. Can be done. Twelve mile of tunnel and the rest trestle.
Wouldn't cost more 'n fifteen, twenty million--if you're figgerin' on
the west side of the stream.... How you figgerin' on gettin' your pulp
wood down to Tupper Falls?"

"What?... What's that?"

"Goin' to log, yourself, or job it?"

"Look here, Baines, what do you know?"

"About what's needful. I try to keep posted."

"Tell me what you know. I insist."

Scattergood opened his eyes and peered over his dumpling cheeks at
McKettrick, but said nothing.

"And how you found it out."

"I've been figgerin' over your case," said Scattergood. "I'll give you a
sidetrack into your yards pervidin' you pay the cost of bridgin' and
layin' the track, me to furnish ties and rails. _Also_, I'll give you a
commodity rate of seven cents to the G. and B. As to sellin', I don't
calc'late you want to buy at a million. But that hain't no sign you and
me can't do business. You got to log by rail. You got to cut consid'able
number of cords of pulpwood. I'll build your loggin' road, and I'll
contract to cut your pulp and deliver it.... Want to go into it with
me?"

McKettrick peered at Scattergood with awakened interest. His scrutiny
told him nothing.

"What backing have you?"

"My own."

McKettrick almost sneered.

"Been lookin' me up?" asked Scattergood.

"No."

"Let's step to the bank."

McKettrick followed Scattergood's bulky figure-wondering.

In the bank Scattergood presented the treasurer. "Mr. Noble, meet Mr.
McKettrick. He wants you should tell him somethin' about me. For
instance, Noble, about how fur you calculate my credit could be
stretched."

"Mr. Baines would have no difficulty borrowing from five hundred
thousand to three quarters of a million," said Noble.

"How's his reppitation for keepin' his word?" said Scattergood.

"The whole state knows your word is kept to the letter."

"What you calculate I'm wuth--visible prop'ty?"

"I'd say a million and a half to two millions."

"Backin' enough to suit you, Mr. McKettrick?" asked Scattergood.

McKettrick wore a dazed look. Scattergood did not look like two
millions; he did not look like ten thousand. His bearing became more
respectful.

"I'll listen to any proposition you wish to make," he said.

"Come over to Johnnie Bones's," said Scattergood.

In a moment they were sitting in Johnnie's office, and McKettrick and
Johnnie were acquainted.

"Here's my proposition," said Scattergood. "I'll build and equip a
loggin' road accordin' to your surveys. You furnish right of way and
enough money to give you forty-nine per cent of the stock in the company
we'll form. I kin build cheaper 'n you, and I know the country and kin
git the labor. You pay the new railroad a set price for haulin'
pulpwood--say dollar 'n a quarter to two dollars a cord, as we figger it
later.... Then I'll take the job of loggin' for you and layin' down the
pulpwood at sidings. It'll save you labor and expense and trouble. I've
showed I was responsible. The new railroad company'll put up bonds, and
so'll the loggin' company--if you say so."

This was the beginning of some weeks of negotiations, during which
Scattergood became convinced that McKettrick was wishful of using him so
long as he proved useful; then, when the day arrived for a showing of
profit on the profit sheet, the same McKettrick was planning to see that
no profit would be there and that Scattergood Baines should be
eliminated from consideration--to McKettrick's profit in the sum of
whatever amount Scattergood invested in the construction of the
railroad. It was a situation that exactly suited Scattergood's love of
business excitement.

"If McKettrick had come up here wearin' better manners," said
Scattergood to Johnnie, "and if he hadn't got himself all rigged out as
little Red Ridin' Hood's grandmother--figgerin' I'd qualify for little
Red Ridin' Hood without the eyesight for big ears and big teeth that
little girl had--why, I might 'a' give him a reg'lar business deal. But
seem's he's as he is, I calc'late I'm privileged to git what I kin git."

Therefore Scattergood made it a clause in the contract that all the
stock in the new railroad and construction company should remain in his
own name until the road was completed and ready to operate. Then 49 per
cent should be transferred to McKettrick. This McKettrick regarded as a
harmless eccentricity of the lamb he was about to fleece.

The new company was organized with Johnnie Bones as president,
Scattergood as treasurer, an employee of McKettrick's as secretary, and
Mandy Baines and another employee of McKettrick's as the remaining two
directors.

While the negotiations regarding the railroad were being carried on,
another matter arose to irritate Mr. McKettrick, and, in some measure,
to take the keen edge off his attention. Scattergood usually endeavored
to have some matter arise to irritate and distract when he was engaged
on a major operation, and it was for this reason he had bought the four
strips of land at Tupper Falls.

McKettrick awoke suddenly to find that his men had not secured the site
for his mills, and that, apparently, it could not be secured. He
discussed the thing with Scattergood.

"Prob'ly some old scissor bills that got a notion of hangin' on to their
land," Scattergood said.

"It can't be that, for the sales to the present owners were recent. The
new owners refuse absolutely to sell."

"And pulp mills hain't got no right of eminent domain like railroads."

"All substantial businesses ought to have it," said McKettrick. "You
know these folks. I wish you'd see what you can do."

"Glad to," Scattergood promised, and two days later he reported that all
four landowners might be brought to terms. Three would sell, surely; one
was holding back strangely, but the three had put the matter into the
hands of a local real-estate and insurance broker, by name Wangen.
"We'll go see him," said Scattergood.

Which they did. "My clients," said Wangen, importantly, "realize the
value of their property. That, I may say, is why they bought."

"It cost the three of 'em less 'n three thousand dollars for the three
passels," said Scattergood.

"Prices have gone up," said Wangen.

"Give them two hundred dollars profit apiece," said McKettrick.

"Consid'able difference between givin' it and their takin' it," said
Scattergood. "I agree with that," said Wangen.

"Now, Wangen, you and me has done consid'able business," said
Scattergood, "and you hain't goin' to hold up a friend of mine."

"If it was a personal thing, Mr. Baines; but I've got to do my best for
my clients."

"What's your proposition?"

"Five thousand dollars apiece for the three strips."

"It's an outrage," roared McKettrick. "I'll never be robbed like that."

"Take it," said Wangen, "or leave it."

"You've _got_ to have it," Scattergood whispered.

McKettrick spluttered and stormed and pleaded, but Wangen was firm and
gave but one answer. There could be but one result: McKettrick wrote a
check for fifteen thousand dollars--and still had one strip to buy--a
strip not at an edge of his mill site, but bisecting it.

This strip caused the worry when Scattergood needed attention distracted
the most. But Scattergood managed finally to secure it for McKettrick
for seventy-five hundred dollars. Thus it will be seen how Scattergood
resorted to the law of necessity, and how McKettrick suffered from
failure to build securely his commercial structure from its foundation.
Twenty-two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars were paid by
McKettrick for land that had cost Scattergood exactly three thousand six
hundred dollars. Scattergood believed in always paying for services
rendered, so Wangen and each of the four ostensible landowners were
given a hundred dollars. Net profit to Scattergood, eighteen thousand
one hundred and fifty dollars.

"Which it wouldn't 'a' cost him if he hadn't looked sneerin' at my
stockin' feet," said Scattergood to Johnnie Bones.

Johnnie Bones prepared the papers for the incorporation of the new
railroad, and the organization was perfected. There were two thousand
shares of one hundred dollars each. McKettrick put in his right of way
at five thousand, an excessive figure, as Scattergood knew well, and
gave his check for the balance of his 49 per cent. Scattergood deposited
a check for his 51 per cent, or one hundred and two thousand dollars.
Work was begun grading the right of way immediately.

McKettrick vanished from the region and did not appear again except for
flying visits to his rising plant at Tupper Falls. He never inspected so
much as a foot of the new railroad back into the Goodhue tract--and
this, Scattergood very correctly took to be suspicious. The work was
left utterly in Scattergood's hands, with no check upon him and no
inspection. It was not like a man of McKettrick's character--unless
there were an object.

Once or twice Scattergood encountered President Castle of the G. & B.
while the road was building.

"Hear you're putting in a logging road for McKettrick," he said.

"For me," said Scattergood. "Stock stands in my name. Calculate to
operate it myself."

"Oh!" said Castle, and drummed with his fingers on the window ledge.
Scattergood said nothing.

"Own the right of way?" asked Castle.

"'Tain't precisely a right of way," said Scattergood. "It's a easement,
or property right, or whatever the lawyers would call it, to run tracks
over any part of McKettrick's property and operate a loggin'
railroad--where McKettrick says he wants to get logs from."

"No definite right of way?"

"Jest what I described."

"Capitalized for two hundred thousand, I see."

"Uh-huh!"

"Any stock for sale?"

"Not at the present writin'."

"At a price?"

"Wa-al, now--"

"Say a profit of twenty dollars a share."

"It'll pay dividends on more 'n that figger," said Scattergood,
"which," he added, "you know dum well."

"Yes," said Castle, "but for a quick turnover--and I'm not figuring
dividends altogether."

"Kind of got a bone to pick with McKettrick, eh?"

"Maybe."

"Tell you what I'll do," said Scattergood. "I'll sell you forty-nine per
cent of the stock at a hunderd and twenty. Stock to stand in my name
till the road's ready to operate, I don't want it known I've been
sellin' any.... Shouldn't be s'prised if you was able to pick up control
one way and another--but I hain't goin' to sell it to you."

"I see," said Castle, closing his eyes and squinting through a slit
between the lids. "It's a deal, Mr. Baines," he said, presently.

"Cash," said Scattergood.

"You'll find a certified check in the mail the day after I get the
proper papers."

Which transaction gave Scattergood another profit on the whole affair of
nineteen thousand six hundred dollars--this time a capitalization of the
spite of man toward man. It will be seen that McKettrick owned 49 per
cent of the stock, Castle, 49 per cent, and Scattergood, 2 per cent. He
was now in a position to await developments.

They arrived as the railway was on the point of running its first train.
McKettrick brought them in person. He burst upon Scattergood as
Scattergood sat in front of his hardware store, and began to storm.

"What's this? What's this?" he roared. "What's that railroad doing up
the easterly side of our timber? It's waste money, lost money. It'll
have to be rebuilt. We've made all arrangements to cut off the westerly
side. Now we'll have to swamp roads and log by team till the road can be
moved."

"Um!..." said Scattergood, "so _that's_ it, eh? I was wonderin' how it
would come."

"It was an inexcusable blunder, and it'll cost you money. You know how
the railroad's contract with the company reads. Who gave you directions
to run up the easterly side?"

"My engineer got 'em in your office."

"Oh, your engineer. He made the mistake, eh? Then the mistake's yours,
all right, for every scrap of writing in our office has the word
'westerly' in it, plain and distinct. It means tearing up those rails,
grading a new line--and you'll pay for it. I sha'n't stand loss for your
mistake. It'll cost you a hundred thousand dollars for that blunder."

"Hain't you discoverin' it a mite late?"

"It was left wholly to you."

"Seems like I noticed it," said Scattergood. "So all that work's lost,
eh? Seems a pity, too."

"You don't seem to take it seriously."

"You bet I do, and I calculate to look into it _some_."

"It won't do any good. The mistake is plain."

"Shouldn't be s'prised. I git your idee, McKettrick. You've been
figgerin' from the start on smougin' me out of what I invested in that
road, eh?... By the way, your stock's in your name. I'll git the
certificates out of the safe."

McKettrick shoved the envelope in his pocket. "The Seaboard Box and
Paper Company will force you to remove your tracks from our land. I'll
sue you for damages for your blunder. The Seaboard will sue the new
railroad for damages for failure to have the tracks into the cuttings
on time. I guess when we begin collecting judgments by levying on the
new road, there won't be much of it left. The Seaboard will come pretty
close to owning it."

"And you and I will be frozen out, eh?" said Scattergood.

McKettrick purred and smiled. "Exactly," he said. "Now, my advice to you
is not to fight the thing. You can't deny the blunder and you'll save
cost of litigation."

"What's your proposition?"

"Transfer your stock to the Seaboard."

"And lose a hunderd and two thousand?"

"It's not our fault if you make expensive mistakes."

"Course not," said Scattergood. "I admit I hain't much on litigation.
S'posin' you and me meets in Boston to-morrow with our lawyers, and sort
of figger this thing out."

"There's nothing to figure out--but I'll meet you to-morrow. You're
sensible to settle."

"Calc'late I be," said Scattergood.

That afternoon Johnnie Bones carried President Castle's 49 per cent of
the railroad's stock to the G. & B. offices, and gave them into the
hands of the railroad's chief executive.

"Mr. Baines will be here to-morrow. There will be a meeting at his hotel
at three o'clock. McKettrick will be there."

"I'll come," said President Castle.

The meeting was held in the shabby hotel which Scattergood patronized.
McKettrick was there with his attorney, Scattergood was there with
Johnnie Bones--and last came President Castle.

At his entrance McKettrick scowled and leaped to his feet.

"What do _you_ want here?" he demanded.

"Well," said Mr. Castle, with a smile which descended into great depths
of disagreeability, "I own forty-nine per cent of the stock in this
concern. I imagine I have a right to be here."

"What's that? What's that?" McKettrick glared at Scattergood, who sat
placidly removing his shoes.

"Calc'late I'll relie

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