it by narrow strips which, for the most part, were farms.
Some few pieces ran down to the river, but it was apparent that Crane &
Keith were looking to the future--buying timber when it was at its
lowest, and preparing to hold for a better day. They had bought
strategically. More than one tributary valley was in their hands, and,
when the day ripened, small land purchases would connect their holdings,
bring them to water, and place them in such a commanding position that
the valley would be as surely theirs as if they owned every foot of it.
Inasmuch as Scattergood planned, himself, to control Coldriver Valley,
the prospect was not pleasing to him.

Scattergood closed the atlas and put on his shoes. "Um!..." he said.
"Calculate that'll keep their minds off'n other things a spell. If
they see me dickerin' there, they won't figger I'm dickerin' some place
else."

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?"

Norton hesitated. "I--I might."

"Cash?"

"Why, I suppose so."

"In your own name, eh? Not in anybody else's."

"How much should I pay?"

"Folks always pays what they have to--no more--no less. Immediate
possession. Always