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. His valley must be hemmed in. The only way to
market must lie _down_ the valley, with the river. And the river that
flowed down his valley must be swift, with sufficient volume all twelve
months of the year to turn possible mill wheels.... As yet he thought
only of the direct application of power. He had not dreamed yet of great
turbine generators which should transport thousands of horse power,
written in terms of electricity, hundreds of miles across country, there
to light cities and turn the wheels of huge manufactories....

Coldriver Valley was that valley! He felt it as soon as he turned into
it; certainty increased as he progressed between those gigantic walls
black with tall, straight, beautiful spruce. So, when he sat shoeless,
resting his blistered feet on Locker's porch, he was ready to make his
decision. The mere making of it was a negligible detail.

So Scattergood Baines found his valley. He entered it consciously as an
invader, determined to conquer. Pitiful as were the resources of Cortez
as he adventured against the power of Montezuma, or of Pizarro as he
clambered over the Peruvian Andes, they were gigantic compared with
Scattergood's. He was starting to make _his_ conquest backed by one
twenty, three fives, four twos, and ninety cents in silver. It was
obvious to him the country to be conquered must supply the sinews of war
for its own conquest.