CHAPTER VI
INSURANCE THAT DID NOT LAPSE
Scattergood Baines was not a man to shingle his roof before he built his foundations. He knew the value of shingles, and was not without some appreciation for frescoes and porticoes and didos, but he liked to reach them in the ordinary course of logical procedure. His completed structure, according to the plans carefully printed on his brain, was the domination of Coldriver Valley through ownership of its means of transportation and of its water power. He wanted to be rich, not for the sake of being rich, but because a great deal of money is, 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."