“In stock?”

“Calc’late so.”

“Baines,” said Linderman, “I’ll go you.  Crane and Keith are due for a lesson.”

“Ready now?”

“Yes.”

“G’-by, Mr. Linderman.  Have money when I want it.  G’-by.”

Scattergood had a list of stockholders in the pulp company and knew they were worried.  He spent two days in interviewing a dozen of them, and found little difficulty optioning their stock at a pleasant figure.  They imagined he must be crazy, and he did nothing to destroy the belief.

Then he called at the offices of Crane & Keith.

“Want to see the boss man,” he said.

“What for?”

“Hear you got stock for sale.  Pulp company.  Figger to buy.”

Here was a lamb ready for the slaughter.  Mr. McCann, who received him, could see the delight of his employers, and his own profit, if he should succeed in taking this fat backwoodsman into camp.

“You want to buy stock in the pulp company, I understand?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“How much you got?”

“Guess we can sell you all you want.”

“Money-makin’ proposition, hain’t it?”

“Of course.”

“But you’re willin’ to sell?  Kind of funny, hain’t it?”

“Oh no.  We have so many enterprises.”

“Glad you want to sell.  I figger to make money on this stock.  Want to buy a lot of it.”

“About how many shares?”

“What you askin’?” said Scattergood.

“Par.”

“Shucks!  Give you thirty.”

There was haggling and bickering until a price of sixty was agreed upon, and Mr. McCann’s heart expanded with satisfaction.

“Now, how many shares?”

“Want control.  Want fifty-one per cent, anyhow.  Got ’em?”

“Of course.”  This was not the fact, but Mr. McCann was not addicted to unnecessary facts.  He knew where he could get the rest for less than 60.  There would be an additional profit and additional credit coming to him.  In cold reality, Crane & Keith owned some 40 per cent of the stock.

“Take all you’ll sell.”

“I can let you have fifteen hundred shares—­for cash.”  This was an even 60 per cent, but McCann knew where he could get the other 20.

“Come to the bank.  Come now.  Give you the cash.”

“I can’t deliver but one thousand shares to-day, but I can give you the other five hundred to-morrow.”

“Suits me.  Pay for ’em all to-day.  Gimme what you got and a receipt for the rest.  Comin’ to the bank?”

Mr. McCann put on his coat and hat and accompanied Scattergood to the bank, where he received a certified check for the full amount, gave Scattergood in return a thousand shares of stock, and a receipt which recited that Scattergood had paid for five hundred shares more, to be delivered within twenty-four hours.

Scattergood went to see Mr. Linderman; McCann went out to round up five hundred shares of stock.  By midnight he was a worried young man.  The stock he had thought to pick up so readily was not to be had.  Everybody seemed to have disposed of it and nobody seemed to know exactly who had been doing the buying, for the options had been taken in a number of names.  Next morning McCann sought diligently until he found Scattergood.