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.
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