Crane was purple with rage, but underneath his rage was a clammy layer of unpleasant surprise that this mound of flabby fat should have had such uncanny vision into his hardly creditable plans.

“You’re crazy, man,” he blustered.

“Maybe so....  Maybe so.  Anyhow, I took out a mite of insurance ag’in’ sich a happenin’.  I got me this here provision company to feed your men....  Ever happen to think what would happen in the woods if your lumberjacks run short of grub?  Eh?...  And suppose it happened, and your men come bilin’ out of camp, sore as bears with bee stings.  What then, eh?  Couldn’t git another crew this winter, maybe.  Eh?”

Crane blustered.  He threatened legal measures, but Scattergood pointed out no legal measures could be taken until he failed to deliver supplies.  Also, he directed Crane’s attention to the fact that the provision company was a corporation, and liable only to the extent of its assets.  “So, even if you got a judgment, you wouldn’t collect enough to make no profit.  And your winter’s cut would be off, and what logs you got cut would rot in the woods.  I calc’late you’d stand to git damaged consid’able.”

“What’s your proposition?” spluttered Crane.

“Hain’t got none....  You jest run back to Keith and repeat as much of this here talk as you can remember.  I’m goin’ to be busy now.  Afternoon.”

For two weeks Scattergood disappeared, and though Crane and Keith sought him with fever in their blood, he was not to be found.  He filled their minds; he dominated their conversation; he gave them sleepless nights and unpleasant days....  Their attention was effectively focused on the emergency he had presented to them.  Scattergood had kicked up an effective dust.

At the end of two weeks Scattergood appeared again in town, and went directly to Johnnie Bones’s office.  Scattergood now called his lawyer Johnnie.

“Got ’em?” he asked.

“Not all.  There’s a fifteen-thousand-acre strip cutting right across your horseshoe, from East to West Branch, and I couldn’t touch it.  I got all the rest.  That one belongs to a woman, and a more unreasonable woman to try to do business with I never saw.”

“Um!” said Scattergood.  “Know where I been, Johnnie?”

“No, sir.”

“Gittin’ married.”

“What?”

“Yes.  Me ‘n’ the lady, we met by arrangement in Boston and got us a preacher and done the job.  Marriage, Johnnie, is a doggone solemn matter.”

“I’ve heard so,” said the young man.

“Some day,” said Scattergood, “I’m a-goin’ to marry you off.  Calculate I got the girl in my eye now.”

“I hope,” Johnnie said, “that you’ll be—­er—­very happy.”

“Guess we’ll manage so-so....  Now about them options, Johnnie.  You make tracks for the city and sort of edge up to Crane and Keith.  Might start by showin’ ’em a deed for a mill site down across from theirs at the railroad.  Then you might start askin’ questions like you was lookin’ for information.  Guess that’ll git up their curiosity some.  Then you kin spring your options on ’em....  When you’ve done that, come off and leave ‘em sweatin’.  And don’t mention me.  I hain’t in this deal a-tall.”