Scattergood Baines Part 15

"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 c.o.c.ky. 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. n.o.body 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 doc.u.mentary appearance.

Castle s.n.a.t.c.hed 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, pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.s. 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 pa.s.sengers and commodities. But the stage line was not to be acquired, because Deacon Pettybone and Elder Hooper, who owned it in partners.h.i.+p, 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 st.u.r.diest 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 wors.h.i.+ped G.o.d 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 fas.h.i.+oning, 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 suns.h.i.+ne, and gazing up the dusty road which pa.s.sed 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.