"This last
check, deductin' four thousand as cost of stock, gives me a profit of
twelve thousand two hunderd and fifty for the day. Add that to eighteen
thousand one hunderd and fifty on the strips of land, and nineteen
thousand six hunderd on the stock I sold Castle first, and what do we
git?"
"Even fifty thousand," said Johnnie.
"I always did cotton to round figgers," said Scattergood, comfortably.
"Let's git us a meal of vittles."
CHAPTER VI
INSURANCE THAT DID NOT LAPSE
Scattergood Baines was not a man to shingle his roof before he built his
foundations. He knew the value of shingles, and was not without some
appreciation for frescoes and porticoes and didos, but he liked to reach
them in the ordinary course of logical procedure. His completed
structure, according to the plans carefully printed on his brain, was
the domination of Coldriver Valley through ownership of its means of
transportation and of its water power. He wanted to be rich, not for the
sake of being rich, but because a great deal of money is, aside from
love or hate, the most powerful lever in the world. For five years, now,
Scattergood had moved along slowly and irresistibly, buying a bit of
timber here, acquiring a dam site there, taking over the stage line to
the railroad twenty-four miles away, and establishing a credit and a
reputation for shrewdness that were worth much more to him than dollars
and cents in the bank.
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