arded the machine
longingly, and spoke of price. Scattergood disclosed it.

"Hain't got it and can't afford it," said Landers.

"Might afford a swap?"

"Might. What you got in mind?"

"Say," said Scattergood, changing the subject, "ever try drainin' that
marsh in the fork? Looks like it could be done. Might make a good
medder."

Landers laughed. "If you want to try," he chuckled, "I'll trade it to
you for this here mowin' machine."

"Hum!..." grunted Scattergood, and higgled and argued, but ended by
accepting a deed for the land and turning over the machine to Landers.
Scattergood himself had sixty days to pay for it. It cost him something
like half a dollar an acre, and Landers considered he had robbed the
hardware merchant of a machine.

One side of the bottle neck Scattergood took in exchange for a kitchen
stove and a double harness; the third parcel of land came to him for a
keg of nails, five gallons of paint, sundry kitchen utensils, and twelve
dollars and fifty cents in money.... And when Coldriver heard of the
deals it chuckled derisively and regarded its hardware merchant with
pitying scorn.

Then Scattergood left a youth in charge of his store and went softly to
the state capital. In after years his skill in handling legislatures was
often remarked upon with displeasure. His young manhood held prophecy of
this future ability, for he came home acquainted with nine tenths of the
legislators, laughed at by half of them as a harmless oddity, and with a
state charter for his river company in his pocket.... When folks heard
of that charter they held their sides and roared.

Scattergood returned to selling hardware, and waited. He had an idea he
would hear something stirring on his trail before long, and he fancied
he could guess who and what that something would be. He judged he would
hear from two gentlemen named Crane and Keith. Crane owned some twenty
thousand acres of timber along the North Branch; Keith owned slightly
lesser limits along the South Branch. Both gentlemen were lumbering and
operating mills in another state; their Coldriver holdings they had
acquired, and, as the saying is, forgotten, until the time should come
when they would desire to move into Coldriver Valley.

Now these holdings were recalled sharply to memory, and both of them
took train to Coldriver.

Scattergood had not worried about it. He had simply gone along selling
hardware in his own way--and selling a good deal of it.