McKettrick vanished from the region and did not appear again except for flying visits to his rising plant at Tupper Falls. He never inspected so much as a foot of the new railroad back into the Goodhue tract—and this, Scattergood very correctly took to be suspicious. The work was left utterly in Scattergood's hands, with no check upon him and no inspection. It was not like a man of McKettrick's character—unless there were an object.
Once or twice Scattergood encountered President Castle of the G. & B. while the road was building.
"Hear you're putting in a logging road for McKettrick," he said.
"For me," said Scattergood. "Stock stands in my name. Calculate to operate it myself."
"Oh!" said Castle, and drummed with his fingers on the window ledge. Scattergood said nothing.
"Own the right of way?" asked Castle.
"'Tain't precisely a right of way," said Scattergood. "It's a easement, or property right, or whatever the lawyers would call it, to run tracks over any part of McKettrick's property and operate a loggin' railroad—where McKettrick says he wants to get logs from."
"No definite right of way?"
"Jest what I described."
"Capitalized for two hundred thousand, I see."