“Crane and Keith, f’r instance?”

“Yes.”

“Um!...  Have to be right of way, or jest land for railroad yards, or to build railroad buildin’s on?”

“Any land necessary to a railroad.”

“Um!...  Who says if it’s necessary?”

“The courts.”

“How’d you git at it?”

“Start what are called condemnation proceedings.”

“All right, Johnnie, start me some.”

“Against whom, and for what, Mr. Baines?”

“Against Crane and Keith, to git their land down at the G. and B. All their mill yards, you know.  Don’t want the mill buildin’.  They’re welcome to that.  Jest their yards.”

“But they can’t run the mill without the log yard and the yard to pile out their lumber.”

“Be too bad, wouldn’t it?  Calc’late I’m a heap sorry for Crane and Keith.  Them fellers arouses my sympathy mighty frequent.”

“But you’re not a railroad, Mr. Baines.”

“Yes I be, Johnnie.  To-morrow I’ll be layin’ rails to prove it.”

“But you own land right adjoining Crane and Keith’s yards.  Plenty of it.”

“Not plenty, Johnnie....  Not plenty.  As long as Crane and Keith owns anything in this neighborhood I hain’t got plenty of it.  Get the idee?”

“You want to run them out?”

“Wa-al, they hain’t been exactly friendly to me.  I like to dwell among friends, Johnnie.  Lately they been makin’ a sight of trouble for me.  Seems like I ought to sort of return the favor.  ’Tain’t jest spite, Johnnie.  Spite’s a luxury I can’t afford if there hain’t a money profit in it.  Seems like there might be a dollar or two in this here proceedin’—­if handled jest right.”

Johnnie didn’t see it, but then he failed to see the profitable object in a great many things that Scattergood undertook.  It was not his business to see, but to carry out promptly and efficiently Scattergood’s directions.  The time had not yet arrived when Johnnie was Scattergood’s right hand, as in the bigger days that lay ahead.

“Didn’t know Crane’s sister married President Castle of the G. and B., did you, Johnnie?”

“No.  What has that to do with it?”

“Consid’able....  Consid’able.  Goes some ways toward provin’ to me I was expected to call on Castle and that things was arranged on purpose.  Proves to my satisfaction that Crane and Keith went out of their way to start this rumpus with me....  You start them condemnation proceedin’s as quick as you kin.”

Johnnie started them.  Scattergood waited a few days; watched with interest the laying of the first rails of the Coldriver Railroad, and then made the day’s drive to the state capital with drafts of his pair of bills in his pocket.  He hunted up the representative from his town—­Amri Striker by name.

“Amri,” said he, “how’s your disposition these days, eh?  Feel like doin’ favors?”