Scattergood Baines Part 22

"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 n.o.body.... 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 sh.e.l.l 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 bra.s.s 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 s.h.i.+p 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 establis.h.i.+ng 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.