s, aside from
love or hate, the most powerful lever in the world. For five years, now,
Scattergood had moved along slowly and irresistibly, buying a bit of
timber here, acquiring a dam site there, taking over the stage line to
the railroad twenty-four miles away, and establishing a credit and a
reputation for shrewdness that were worth much more to him than dollars
and cents in the bank.

As a matter of fact, Scattergood had amassed considerable more money
than even the gimlet eyes and whispering tongues of Coldriver had been
able to credit him with. It is doubtful if anybody realized just how
strong a foot-hold Scattergood was getting in that valley, but the men
who came closest to it were Messrs. Crane and Keith, lumbermen, who were
beginning to experience a feeling of growing irritation toward the fat
hardware merchant. They were irritated because, every now and then, they
found themselves shut off from the water, or from a bit of timber, or
from some other desirable property, by some small holding of
Scattergood's which seemed to have dropped into just the right spot to
create the maximum amount of trouble for them. It could be nothing but
chance, they told each other, for they had sat in judgment on
Scattergood, and their judgment had been that he was a lazy lout with
more than a fair share of luck.

"It's nothing but luck," Crane told his partner. "The man hasn't a brain
in his head--just a big lump of fat."

"But he's always getting in the way--and he does seem to know a
water-power site when he sees it."

"Anybody does," said Crane. "He's a doggone nuisance and we might as
well settle with him one time as another--and the time to settle is
before his luck gives him a genuine strangle hold on this valley. We've
got too much timber on these hills to take any risks."

"I leave it with you, Crane. You're the outside man. But when you bust
him, bust him good."

Crane retired to his office and devoted his head to the subject
exclusively, and because Crane's head was that sort of head he devised
an enterprise which, if Scattergood could be made to involve himself in
it, would result in the extinction of that gentleman in the Coldriver
Valley.

It was a week later that a gentleman, whose clothes and bearing
guaranteed him to be a genuine denizen of the city, stopped at
Scattergood's store. Scattergood was sitting, as usual, on the piazza,
in his especially reinforced chair, laying in wait for somebody to whom