If Scattergood had been a general, history would have recorded that he won his battles by making feints at some vulnerable point in the enemy's line, and then struck his major blow at a distance where he was not suspected to be operating at all.
It chanced that Crane & Keith were cutting timber from the Bottle—a valley so named. Their rollways were piled high, and it was time for them to team to the river. To reach the river they must pass through the Bottleneck and over the farm belonging to Old Man Plumm. There was another road into the valley—a public road—but it was a fifteen-mile haul. Old Man Plumm was a non-assertive person, and good-natured. His farm was a ramshackle, down-at-heels, worthless place, off which he gleaned the meagerest of livelihoods, so that he had not been averse to permitting Crane & Keith to traverse his land for a nominal consideration. It was cheaper for Crane & Keith than purchase—and so the matter stood.
Scattergood went across the road to Lawyer Norton's office.
"Goin' up Bottleneck way perty soon?" he asked.
"Not that I know of, Scattergood."
"Nice drive. Old Man Plumm's got a farm there."
"I know that, of course."
"Don't figger to visit him?"
"Why—" said Norton, beginning to see that Scattergood had something in view—"I could."
"Wouldn't try to buy the farm, would you?"