trained to the uttermost.

Nor had the pulp company been idle. Its new mills had arisen beside the
river at Higgins's Bridge, machinery had been installed, and the little
hamlet was beginning to speculate in town lots and to look forward to
unexampled prosperity.

But before the ice was out of the river disquieting rumors began to
breathe out of Higgins's Bridge. They were the meerest vapor of
conjecture at first, apparently based upon no evidence whatever, but
friends delighted to convey them to Scattergood, as friends always
delight to perform such a disagreeable duty.

"Hear things hain't goin' right down to the new pulp mill," said Deacon
Pettybone, one bitterly cold afternoon, when he came into Scattergood's
store to thaw the icicles out of his sparse beard.

"Do tell," said Scattergood.

"Be perty bad for you if they was to go wrong, wouldn't it?"

"Perty bad, Deacon."

"'Most ruin you, wouldn't it? Clean you out? Leave you with nothin'?"

"Hain't mortgaged my health. Hain't mortgaged my brains. Have them left,
Deacon. Don't figger I'm clean bankrupt till them two is gone."

But it was to be noticed that Scattergood toasted his bare toes a great
deal during the ensuing days. He scarcely put on his shoes except when
he was going out to wallow through the drifts; and, as Coldriver knew,
when Scattergood waggled his bare toes he was struggling with a
problem.

Also it might have been noticed that he pored much over the detailed
maps in the county atlas, studying the flow of streams and the lie of
timber. It might have been seen that several large blocks of timber had
been marked by Scattergood with red crosses, and that certain other
limits had been blotted out in black. The black pieces were neither
numerous nor individually extensive, but they belonged to Scattergood.
Those marked with red crosses were the property of Messrs. Crane &
Keith.

Now, it may be taken as axiomatic that in those early days the value of
a piece of timber depended upon its accessibility to flowing water down
which logs might be driven. A medium piece of timber on the banks of a
stream which came to plentiful flood in the spring was worth more in
hard dollars and cents than a much larger and finer piece back in the
hills. A piece of timber which had no access whatever to water
approximated worthlessness. On the atlas, the largest pieces of Crane &
Keith timber were back from the river--not too far back, but still
separated from