"McKettrick of the Seaboard Box and Paper Company, biggest concern of the kind in America. Calc'late they'll be makin' pulp here to ship to their paper mills. Calculate I'll give 'em a commodity rate of around seven cents to the G. and B. Johnnie, our orchard's goin' to begin givin' a crop. That'll give us sixteen dollars and eighty cents for haulin' a minimum car of twenty-four thousand. And this hain't goin' to be any one-car mill, neither. Five cars a day'll be increasin' our revenue twenty-four thousand three hunderd dollars a year--on outgoin' freight. Then there's incomin' freight to figger. All we got to do is set still and take _that_. Beauty of controllin' the transportation of a region. But it seems like we ought to git more out of it than that--if we stir around some. Especial when you come to consider that McKettrick and Castle is flyin' at each other's throats. It's a situation, Johnnie, that man owes a duty to himself to take advantage of." Scattergood went back to his hardware store and seated himself on the piazza. Presently a team drove up from down the valley and a tall, gaunt individual, with hair of the color of a dead leaf, alighted. "I was told I could find a man named Scattergood Baines here," he said. "You kin," Scattergood replied. "Where is he?" "Sich as he is," said Scattergood, "you see him." The man looked from Scattergood's shoeless feet and white woolen socks to Scattergood's shabby, baggy trousers, and then on upward, by slow and disapproving degrees, to Scattergood's guileless face, and there the scrutiny stopped. "Some mistake," he said; "I want the owner of the Coldriver Valley Railroad." "It may be a mistake," said Scattergood. "Calculate it _is_ a mistake to own a railroad. But 'tain't the only mistake I ever made." "_You_ own the road?" "Calculate to." Evidently the stranger was not impressed by Scattergood in a manner to arouse him to a notable exertion of courtesy. He allowed it to appear in his manner that he set a light value on Scattergood; in fact, that it was not exactly pleasant to him to be compelled to do business with such a human being. Scattergood's eyes twinkled and he wriggled his toes. "Well, Baines," said the stranger, "I want to talk business to you." "Step into my private office," said Scattergood, motioning to a chair at his side, "and rest your legs." "I'm thinking of establishing a plant below," said the stranger. "A very considerable plant. In studying the situation it seems as if your railroad might be run as an adjunct to my business. I suppose it can be bought." "Supposing" said Scattergood, "is free as air." "I'll take it off your hands at a fair figure." "'Tain't layin' heavy on my hands," said Scattergood. "How much did it cost you?" "A heap less 'n I'll sell for.... You hain't mentioned your name." "McKettrick." Scattergood nodded. "I'd sell to a man of that name." "How much?" "One million dollars," said Scattergood.