ight 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 qui