Crothers was a man who approached his ends by the use of his better qualities. The man whom the children of the factory shrank before in trembling fear, the man whom the men fawned before, and the women loathed and hated in dumb acquiescence, was not the man who years ago crept around the desk in his office to implore a kiss from "little Miss." Crothers could smile and speak courteously; his hard eyes could soften and attract, and there was no doubt as to his business capacity and positive genius in bargaining. With a more or less clear idea as to the outcome of his desires, Crothers was perfectly explicit as to his desires. He wanted to get Sandy Morley away, permanently away, from Lost Hollow. Could he achieve this, his business might prosper as in old days, his command of the community gain power and his future be secure. If he could bring this desired consummation to pass, by harming Sandy and, incidentally, Cynthia Walden and Marcia Lowe, so much the better. They were disturbing elements in the place and nothing was secure, not even the suppression of the women and the degeneracy of the men. "In the family and the town," Crothers had said once to Tod Greeley, "there must always be a head; a final voice, or there will be hell." "Who do you want to boss your family and town?" Greeley had innocently asked. Crothers had not committed himself; he believed actions should speak louder than words! Seeking about for a beginning of his campaign to turn Sandy Morley from his course, Crothers landed upon Lans Treadwell. Treadwell could not always be at Trouble Neck while Sandy and Martin were at the factory-building back in the woods; reading palled upon Lans, too, and the bad cooking for his private meals began to attract his attention. That he did not resent anything in his friend's home and make his farewell bow was characteristic of Lansing Treadwell. He was thoroughly good-natured, inordinately selfish, and was consumed by deep-rooted conviction that Sandy Morley owed him a great deal and that he was conferring a mighty honour upon the young man by accepting his hospitality. No doubt arose as to his right in sharing Sandy's home, but as time went on he did, as all weak and vacillating natures do, resent young Morley's strength of character, simplicity and capacity for winning to himself that which Lans felt belonged to him by inherent justice. It had been one thing to know that his Uncle Levi Markham had taken another young man and set him on his feet, but quite another to realize that his uncle had adopted a poor white from the native hills of the Hertfords and was providing him with wings. A new element had entered into Lans. "It's like Uncle Levi," he bitterly thought, with his Aunt Olive's instructions well in mind, "to so degrade me, my father, and our family. If he could put every upstart on a throne who had hewed his way to the throne, he would be supremely happy."