pot below the
village, where East and West Branches joined to pour over a certain dam
owned by him, other narrower parallel lines following river and brooks
back and back into the mountains, the spruce-clad mountains. These
parallel lines were rails. The ones which ran close together were
narrow-gauge--logging roads to bring logs to the big mill which
Scattergood planned to build beside his dam. The broader lines were a
standard-gauge road to carry the cut lumber to the outside world, and
not only the cut lumber, but all the traffic of the valley, all the
freight, the manufactured products of other mills and factories which
were to come along the banks of his river. Here, in black and white, was
set down Scattergood's life plan. When it was accomplished he would be
through. He would be willing to have his maps rolled up and himself to
be laid on the shelf, for he would have done the thing he set out to
do.... For, strange as it may seem, Scattergood was not pursuing money
for money itself--his objective was achievement.

Scattergood was not the only man to own or to study maps. Crane and
Keith were at the same interesting employment, but on a lesser scale.

"Here's your stuff," said Keith, "over here on the East Branch--thirty
thousand acres. Here's mine, on the West Branch--close to thirty
thousand acres. We don't touch anywhere."

"But our locations put us in the driver's seat so far as the timber up
here is concerned. We're in control. There are sixty thousand acres of
mighty good spruce in that triangle between us, and it's as good as
ours. It's there for us when we need it. All we got to do is reach out
our hand for it. The folks that own it haven't got the money to go ahead
with it. Pretty sweet for us--with sixty thousand acres in the palm of
our hand and not a cent invested in it."

"Sweet is the word. But what if somebody grabbed it off?"

"Who'll grab?"

"I think we ought to tie it up somehow. If we owned the whole thing we
could work a heap more profitably. Now we've got to divide camps, or
else cut off one slice or the other at a time. If we owned the whole
thing we could make our cut where it would be easiest handled--and leave
the rest till things develop."

"It's safe. And we can make it mighty unpleasant for anybody who comes
ramming into this region in a small way. Which reminds me of that
Baines--our friend Scattergood. Are we going to let him get away with
that dam and boom company we made him