“You’re right, Mandy, as usual,” he agreed.  “G’by, Mandy.  I calculate you won’t have no trouble mindin’ the store.”

“G’by, Scattergood,” she said, dabbing at her eyes.  “I’ll be relieved to see you gittin’ back.”

There seemed to be little sentiment in these, their words of parting, but in reality it was an exceedingly sentimental passage for them.  Between Scattergood and his wife there was a deep, true, abiding affection.  Folks who regarded it as a business partnership—­and there were many of them—­lacked the seeing eye.

The stage rattled off down the valley—­Scattergood’s valley.  He had invaded it some years before because valleys were his hobby and because this valley offered him the opportunity he had been searching for.  Scattergood knew what could be done with a valley, and he was busy doing it, but he was only at the beginning.  As he bumped along he could see busy villages where only hamlets rested; he could see mills turning timber into finished products; he could see business and life and activity where there were only silence and rocks and trees.  And where ran the rutted mountain road, over which his stage was carrying him uncomfortably, he could see the railroad that was to make his dream a reality.  He could see a railroad stretching all the way from Coldriver village to the main line, and by virtue of this railroad Scattergood would rule the valley.

He had arrived with forty-odd dollars in his pocket.  His few years of labor there, assisted by a wise and business-like marriage, had increased that forty dollars to what some folks would call wealth.  First, he owned a prosperous hardware store.  This was his business.  It netted him a couple of thousand dollars a year.  The valley was his avocation.  It had netted him well over a hundred thousand dollars, most of which was growing on the mountain sides in straight, clear spruce, in birch, beech, and maple.  It had netted him certain strategic holdings of land along Coldriver itself, sites for future dams, for mills yet to be built—­for railroad yards, depots, and terminals.  Quietly, almost stealthily, he had gotten a hold on the valley.  Now he was ready to grip it with both hands and to make it his own....  That is why he journeyed to the city.

He put his canvas telescope between his feet so that he could feel it.  It was as well, he determined, to practice caution where none was needed, so he would be letter perfect in the art when he reached the dangers of the city.  Between Scattergood’s shoes and the feet they inclosed, were sox.  Before his union with Mandy he had been a stranger to such effeteness.  Even now he was prone to discard them as soon as he was out of range of her vision.  To-day he had not escaped, for, warm as the day was, heavy white woolen sox folded and festooned themselves modishly over the tops of his shoes.  He could not wriggle a toe, which made his mental processes difficult, for his toes were first aids to his brain.