Scattergood Baines Part 12

Scattergood got up, and ambled into his store, returning with a resplendent buggy whip--one with a white silk bow tied above its handle.

This he placed in the socket on the dashboard. Then he resumed his chair. Presently Jim emerged with his girl and helped her into the rig.

He noticed the whip, took it out of its place, and examined it; swished it through the air to try its excellence.

"Mighty nice gad," said Scattergood.

"Where in tunket did it come from?" asked Jim.

"I stuck it there. Looked to me like a rig sich as your'n needed a good whip to set it off. I jest put it there to see how it looked."

Jim glanced at his girl, scratched the back of his suntanned neck, and felt in his pocket.

"Calc'late I _did_ need a whip," he said. "How much is sich whips fetchin'?"

"I kin give you that one a might lower 'n usual. It'll be two dollars to you, seem's you got sich a purty girl in the buggy."

The girl giggled, Jim flushed, and fished out two one-dollar bills, which he pa.s.sed over to Scattergood. Then, whip in hand, he drove off with a flourish. Scattergood pocketed the money serenely. It was by methods such as this that he did, in his hardware store, double the business such a store in such a locality normally accounted for.

Scattergood's most outstanding quality was that he never let a business opportunity slip--large or small--and that he manufactured for himself fully half of his business opportunities. He had lifted retail salesmans.h.i.+p to the rank of an art.

Again he got up and went inside, where he wrote a letter to a certain wholesale house with whom his account was large. The letter said he had pressing need for half a dozen railroad rails of certain size and weight, and didn't know where to get them, and would the recipient find them and s.h.i.+p them at once.

Presently Tim Plant, teamster, drove by, and Scattergood hailed him.

"Tim," he said, "you owe me a leetle bill. This hain't a dun, but I got a mite of work to be done, and seein' things wasn't brisk with you, I figgered you might want to work it out--jest to keep busy."

"Sure," said Tim.

Whereupon Scattergood elevated himself to the seat beside Tim, and was driven to the spot he had selected for the Coldriver terminal of his railroad.

"I want about a hunderd feet graded along here," he said, "to lay rails on."

"Rails!... Gos.h.!.+ Scattergood, you hain't thinkin' of buildin' a railroad, be you?"

"Shucks!" said Scattergood. "I jest got a half dozen rails comin', and I figgered I'd like to see how they'd look all laid down on the spot. Give folks an idee how a railroad 'u'd look if there was one."

In which manner Scattergood collected a doubtful bill, obtained a quant.i.ty of labor at what might be called wholesale rates--and actually started work on his railroad. Actual, patent for the world to see. The railroad was begun. Not Crane & Keith, not President Castle, not a court in the world could deny that actual construction had begun. Scattergood was insuring himself against possible steps by the enemy to nullify his charter.

"What's this here _eminent domain_?" Scattergood asked Johnnie Bones.

"It's a legal thing that allows railroads to take land necessary to its operation--paying for it, of course."

"Anybody's land?"

"Yes."

"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?"

"Guess a lot of us boys feel like doin' favors for you, Scattergood."