Next morning Scattergood was about early, padding
slowly up and down the crossed streets which made up the village. He was
studying the ground for immediate strategic purposes, just as he had
been studying the valley on his long trudge up from the railroad for
purposes related to distant campaigns. Though Scattergood's arrival in
Coldriver may have seemed impromptu, as his adoption of the town for a
permanent location seemed abrupt, not to say impulsive, neither really
was so. Scattergood rarely acted without reason and after reflection.
True, he had but a moment's glimpse of Coldriver before he decided he
had moved there, but the glimpse showed him the location was the one he
had been searching for.... Scattergood's specialty, his hobby, was
valleys. Valleys down which splashed and roared sizable streams, whose
mountain sides were covered with timber, and whose flats were
comfortable farms--such valleys interested him with an especial
interest. But the valley he had been looking for was one with but a
single possible _outlet_. He wanted a valley whose timber and produce
and products could not go climbing off across the hills, over a number
of easy roads, to market.
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