Scattergood Baines Part 4

"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 ill.u.s.trate 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. n.o.body had imagined he would be present. Now that he was there, n.o.body 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 compet.i.tors? 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 pa.s.sed the valley's mouth. He saw st.u.r.dy, 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 pa.s.s 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, pa.s.sing 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.