"Cash," said Scattergood, and Mr. Blossom handed over the currency. "Speakin' of pulpwood," said Scattergood, "how much you figger on payin'?" Mr. Blossom named a price, delivered at the mill. "Pay when?" "On delivery." "When want it delivered, eh? What date?" "Before May first." "Water power or steam?" said Scattergood, somewhat irrelevantly. "Both. We're putting in steam engines and boilers, but we're going to depend mostly on water power." "Goin' to build a dam, eh? Big dam?" "Yes." "Um!... Stock company?" "Yes. We'll be solid. Capitalized for a quarter of a million and bonded for a quarter of a million. Gives us half a million capital to start business." "Stock all sold?" "Every share." "Who to?" "Mostly in small blocks in Boston." "Um!... Bonds sold?" "Yes." "Who bought 'em?" "They're underwritten by the Commonwealth Security Trust Company." "Want to know!... Got authority? Vested with authority to put it in writin'?" "The contract, you mean?" "Calculate to mean that." "Yes." "Lawyer acrost the street," said Scattergood. "You can swing it?" "Calculate to." "You have the capital to make good?" "Know I have, don't you? Wouldn't have come to me if you hadn't?" "You'll have to borrow heavily." "My lookout, hain't it? Don't need to worry you?" "Not in the least." "Lawyer's still acrost the street." So Scattergood and Mr. Blossom went across the street and up the narrow stairs to Lawyer Norton's office, where a contract was drafted and signed, obligating Scattergood to deliver to the Higgins's Bridge Pulp Company twenty-five thousand cords of pulp, on or before May 1st, payment to be made on delivery. Mr. Blossom went away wearing a satisfied expression, and in the course of the day sent to Crane & Keith a brief message, a message of two words. "He bit," was the telegram. Scattergood went back to his chair, and presently might have been seen to unlace his shoes absent-mindedly. For an hour he sat there, twiddling his bare toes. Then he got up, jerked Mr. Blossom's old jackknife from the post where it had been abandoned, and pocketed it. "If nothin' else happens," he said to himself, "I'm figgered to make a profit of sixty cents and a tradin' knife." There followed a very busy fall and winter for Scattergood. Not that he neglected his hardware store, but from its porch, and later from a post beside its big stove, he recruited men for his camps and directed the labor of cutting and piling pulpwood along the banks of Coldriver. Also, from time to time, he visited various banks to borrow the money necessary to carry on the operation, sometimes on notes and collateral, sometimes on timber mortgages. The sum of his borrowing mounted and mounted, until, before the arrival of spring, his credit had been strained to the uttermost.