Not many days after Scattergood became the owner of the store at Bailey, Jim was a caller at the new offices of the lumber company, formed when Crane and Keith pooled their interests.

“I come to see you,” he told Crane, “because it seemed like you got to feed your lumberjacks, and I want to git the contract for furnishin’ and deliverin’ the provisions.”

“We’ve sure got to feed ’em,” said Crane.  “But five hundred men eat a lot of grub.  Can you swing it if we give you a chance at it?”

Bailey produced a letter from the Coldriver bank which stated the bank was willing to stand behind any contract made by the Bailey Provision Company, up to a certain substantial amount.

“Who’s the Bailey Provision Company?”

“Me ‘n’ my wife mostly holds the stock.”

“Huh!...  You’ll handle the stuff, deliver it, and all that?  What’s your proposition?”

“Well, havin’ been in business twenty-odd year, I kin buy mighty favorable.  More so ‘n you fellers.  All I want’s a livin’ profit.  Tell you what I’ll do.  I’ll take this here contract like this:  Goods to be delivered in your camps at actual cost of the stuff and freighting plus ten per cent.  We’ll keep stock on hand in depots, and deliver as needed.  It’ll save you all the trouble of handlin’.  We’ll carry the stock, and you pay once a month for what’s delivered.”

Crane called in Keith, and they discussed the proposition.  It presented distinct advantages; might, indeed, save them money in addition to trouble.  Bailey clinched the thing by showing an agreement with the stage line to transport the provisions at a price per hundred pounds notably lower than Crane and Keith imagined could be obtained, and went home carrying the contract Scattergood had sent him to get.

Scattergood put the paper away in his safe and sat back in his reinforced armchair, with placid satisfaction making benignant his face.  “I calc’late,” he said to himself, “that this here dicker’ll keep Crane and Keith gropin’ and wonderin’ and scrutinizin’ more or less—­when it gits to their ears.  Shouldn’t be s’prised if it come to worry ’em a mite.”

So, having created a diversion to conceal the movements of his main attack, Scattergood got out his maps and began scientifically to plan his fall and winter campaign.

Timber was his objective.  Not a hundred acres of it, nor a thousand, but tens of thousands, even a hundred thousand acres of spruce-covered hills was the goal he had set.  To control his valley he must have money; to get money for his developments he must have timber.  Also, ownership of vast limits of growing spruce was necessary to the control of the valley.  He must own more timber thereabouts than anybody else.  He must dominate the timber situation.  To a man whose total resources totaled a matter of fifty thousand dollars—­the bulk of which was tied up in a dam and boom company as yet unproductive—­this looked like a mouthful beyond his capacity to bite off.  Even with timber in the back reaches selling at sixty-six cents an acre, a hundred thousand acres meant an investment of sixty-six thousand dollars.  True, Scattergood could look forward to the day when that same timberland would be worth ten dollars an acre—­a million dollars—­but looking ahead would not produce a cent to-day.