Scattergood was not the only man to own or to study maps. Crane and
Keith were at the same interesting employment, but on a lesser scale.
"Here's your stuff," said Keith, "over here on the East Branch--thirty
thousand acres. Here's mine, on the West Branch--close to thirty
thousand acres. We don't touch anywhere."
"But our locations put us in the driver's seat so far as the timber up
here is concerned. We're in control. There are sixty thousand acres of
mighty good spruce in that triangle between us, and it's as good as
ours. It's there for us when we need it. All we got to do is reach out
our hand for it. The folks that own it haven't got the money to go ahead
with it. Pretty sweet for us--with sixty thousand acres in the palm of
our hand and not a cent invested in it."
"Sweet is the word. But what if somebody grabbed it off?"
"Who'll grab?"
"I think we ought to tie it up somehow. If we owned the whole thing we
could work a heap more profitably. Now we've got to divide camps, or
else cut off one slice or the other at a time. If we owned the whole
thing we could make our cut where it would be easiest handled--and leave
the rest till things develop.
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