Burning Daylight .................................................................................................................................................1

It was a quiet night in the Shovel. At the bar, which ranged along one side of the large chinkedlog room,

leaned half a dozen men, two of whom were discussing the relative merits of sprucetea and limejuice as

remedies for scurvy. They argued with an air of depression and with intervals of morose silence. The other

men scarcely heeded them. In a row, against the opposite wall, were the gambling games. The craptable was

deserted. One lone man was playing at the farotable. The rouletteball was not even spinning, and the

gamekeeper stood by the roaring, redhot stove, talking with the young, darkeyed woman, comely of face

and figure, who was known from Juneau to Fort Yukon as the Virgin. Three men sat in at studpoker, but

they played with small chips and without enthusiasm, while there were no onlookers. On the floor of the

dancingroom, which opened out at the rear, three couples were waltzing drearily to the strains of a violin

Circle City was not deserted, nor was money tight. The miners were in from Moseyed Creek and the other

diggings to the west, the summer washing had been good, and the men's pouches were heavy with dust and

nuggets. The Klondike had not yet been discovered, nor had the miners of the Yukon learned the possibilities

of deep digging and woodfiring. No work was done in the winter, and they made a practice of hibernating in

the large camps like Circle City during the long Arctic night. Time was heavy on their hands, their pouches

were well filled, and the only social diversion to be found was in the saloons. Yet the Shovel was practically

deserted, and the Virgin, standing by the stove, yawned with uncovered mouth and said to Charley Bates:

"If something don't happen soon, I'm gin' to bed. What's the matter with the camp, anyway? Everybody

Bates did not even trouble to reply, but went on moodily rolling a cigarette. Dan MacDonald, pioneer

saloonman and gambler on the upper Yukon, owner and proprietor of the Tivoli and all its games, wandered

forlornly across the great vacant space of floor and joined the two at the stove.

"Then it must be the whole camp," she said with an air of finality and with another yawn.

MacDonald grinned and nodded, and opened his mouth to speak, when the front door swung wide and a man

appeared in the light. A rush of frost, turned to vapor by the heat of the room, swirled about him to his knees

and poured on across the floor, growing thinner and thinner, and perishing a dozen feet from the stove.

Taking the wisp broom from its nail inside the door, the newcomer brushed the snow from his moccasins and

high German socks. He would have appeared a large man had not a huge FrenchCanadian stepped up to him

"Hello, Louis, when did youall blow in?" returned the newcomer. "Come up and have a drink and tell us all

about Bone Creek. Why, doggone youall, shake again. Where's that pardner of yours? I'm looking for

Another huge man detached himself from the bar to shake hands. Olaf Henderson and French Louis, partners

together on Bone Creek, were the two largest men in the country, and though they were but half a head taller

"Hello, Olaf, you're my meat, savvee that," said the one called Daylight. "Tomorrow's my birthday, and I'm

going to put youall on your backsavvee? And you, too, Louis. I can put youall on your back on my

The arrival of the newcomer seemed to send a flood of warmth through the place. "It's Burning Daylight," the

Virgin cried, the first to recognize him as he came into the light. Charley Bates' tight features relaxed at the

sight, and MacDonald went over and joined the three at the bar. With the advent of Burning Daylight the

whole place became suddenly brighter and cheerier. The barkeepers were active. Voices were raised.

Somebody laughed. And when the fiddler, peering into the front room, remarked to the pianist, "It's Burning

Daylight," the waltztime perceptibly quickened, and the dancers, catching the contagion, began to whirl

about as if they really enjoyed it. It was known to them of old time that nothing languished when Burning

He turned from the bar and saw the woman by the stove and the eager look of welcome she extended him.

"Hello, Virgin, old girl," he called. "Hello, Charley. What's the matter with youall? Why wear faces like that

when coffins cost only three ounces? Come up, youall, and drink. Come up, you unburied dead, and name

your poison. Come up, everybody. This is my night, and I'm going to ride it. Tomorrow I'm thirty, and then

I'll be an old man. It's the last fling of youth. Are youall with me? Surge along, then. Surge along.

"Hold on there, Davis," he called to the farodealer, who had shoved his chair back from the table. "I'm going

Pulling a heavy sack of golddust from his coat pocket, he dropped it on the HIGH CARD.

The farodealer slipped two cards. The high card won. He scribbled the amount on a pad, and the weigher at

the bar balanced fifty dollars' worth of dust in the goldscales and poured it into Burning Daylight's sack. The

waltz in the back room being finished, the three couples, followed by the fiddler and the pianist and heading

"Surge along, youall" he cried. "Surge along and name it. This is my night, and it ain't a night that comes

frequent. Surge up, you Siwashes and Salmoneaters. It's my night, I tell youall"

"A mangy night, but it's MY night, you see. I'm the mangy old hewolf. Listen to me howl."

And howl he did, like a lone gray timber wolf, till the Virgin thrust her pretty fingers in her ears and shivered.

A minute later she was whirled away in his arms to the dancingfloor, where, along with the other three

women and their partners, a rollicking Virginia reel was soon in progress. Men and women danced in

moccasins, and the place was soon aroar, Burning Daylight the centre of it and the animating spark, with

quip and jest and rough merriment rousing them out of the slough of despond in which he had found them.

The atmosphere of the place changed with his coming. He seemed to fill it with his tremendous vitality. Men

who entered from the street felt it immediately, and in response to their queries the barkeepers nodded at the

back room, and said comprehensively, "Burning Daylight's on the tear." And the men who entered remained,

and kept the barkeepers busy. The gamblers took heart of life, and soon the tables were filled, the click of

chips and whir of the rouletteball rising monotonously and imperiously above the hoarse rumble of men's

Few men knew Elam Harnish by any other name than Burning Daylight, the name which had been given him

in the early days in the land because of his habit of routing his comrades out of their blankets with the

complaint that daylight was burning. Of the pioneers in that far Arctic wilderness, where all men were

pioneers, he was reckoned among the oldest. Men like Al Mayo and Jack McQuestion antedated him; but

they had entered the land by crossing the Rockies from the Hudson Bay country to the east. He, however, had

been the pioneer over the Chilcoot and Chilcat passes. In the spring of 1883, twelve years before, a stripling

In the fall he had crossed back with one. Four had perished by mischance in the bleak, uncharted vastness.

And for twelve years Elam Harnish had continued to grope for gold among the shadows of the Circle.

And no man had groped so obstinately nor so enduringly. He had grown up with the land. He knew no other

land. Civilization was a dream of some previous life. Camps like Forty Mile and Circle City were to him

metropolises. And not alone had he grown up with the land, for, raw as it was, he had helped to make it. He

had made history and geography, and those that followed wrote of his traverses and charted the trails his feet

Heroes are seldom given to heroworship, but among those of that young land, young as he was, he was

accounted an elder hero. In point of time he was before them. In point of deed he was beyond them. In point

of endurance it was acknowledged that he could kill the hardiest of them. Furthermore, he was accounted a

In all lands where life is a hazard lightly played with and lightly flung aside, men turn, almost automatically,

to gambling for diversion and relaxation. In the Yukon men gambled their lives for gold, and those that won

gold from the ground gambled for it with one another. Nor was Elam Harnish an exception. He was a man's

man primarily, and the instinct in him to play the game of life was strong. Environment had determined what

form that game should take. He was born on an Iowa farm, and his father had emigrated to eastern Oregon, in

which mining country Elam's boyhood was lived. He had known nothing but hard knocks for big stakes.

Pluck and endurance counted in the game, but the great god Chance dealt the cards. Honest work for sure but

meagre returns did not count. A man played big. He risked everything for everything, and anything less than

everything meant that he was a loser. So for twelve Yukon years, Elam Harnish had been a loser. True, on

Moosehide Creek the past summer he had taken out twenty thousand dollars, and what was left in the ground

was twenty thousand more. But, as he himself proclaimed, that was no more than getting his ante back. He

had ante'd his life for a dozen years, and forty thousand was a small pot for such a stakethe price of a drink

and a dance at the Tivoli, of a winter's flutter at Circle City, and a grubstake for the year to come.

The men of the Yukon reversed the old maxim till it read: hard come, easy go. At the end of the reel, Elam

Harnish called the house up to drink again. Drinks were a dollar apiece, gold rated at sixteen dollars an

ounce; there were thirty in the house that accepted his invitation, and between every dance the house was

Elam's guest. This was his night, and nobody was to be allowed to pay for anything.

Not that Elam Harnish was a drinking man. Whiskey meant little to him. He was too vital and robust, too

untroubled in mind and body, to incline to the slavery of alcohol. He spent months at a time on trail and river

when he drank nothing stronger than coffee, while he had gone a year at a time without even coffee. But he

was gregarious, and since the sole social expression of the Yukon was the saloon, he expressed himself that

way. When he was a lad in the mining camps of the West, men had always done that. To him it was the

He was a striking figure of a man, despite his garb being similar to that of all the men in the Tivoli.

Softtanned moccasins of moosehide, beaded in Indian designs, covered his feet. His trousers were ordinary

overalls, his coat was made from a blanket. Longgauntleted leather mittens, lined with wool, hung by his

side. They were connected in the Yukon fashion, by a leather thong passed around the neck and across the

shoulders. On his head was a fur cap, the earflaps raised and the tyingcords dangling. His face, lean and

slightly long, with the suggestion of hollows under the cheekbones, seemed almost Indian. The burnt skin

and keen dark eyes contributed to this effect, though the bronze of the skin and the eyes themselves were

essentially those of a white man. He looked older than thirty, and yet, smoothshaven and without wrinkles,

he was almost boyish. This impression of age was based on no tangible evidence. It came from the abstracter

facts of the man, from what he had endured and survived, which was far beyond that of ordinary men. He had

lived life naked and tensely, and something of all this smouldered in his eyes, vibrated in his voice, and

The lips themselves were thin, and prone to close tightly over the even, white teeth. But their harshness was

retrieved by the upward curl at the corners of his mouth. This curl gave to him sweetness, as the minute

puckers at the corners of the eyes gave him laughter. These necessary graces saved him from a nature that

was essentially savage and that otherwise would have been cruel and bitter. The nose was lean,

fullnostrilled, and delicate, and of a size to fit the face; while the high forehead, as if to atone for its

narrowness, was splendidly domed and symmetrical. In line with the Indian effect was his hair, very straight

"Burning Daylight's burning candlelight," laughed Dan MacDonald, as an outburst of exclamations and

"And when God Almighty washes Daylight's soul out on the last big slucin' day," MacDonald interrupted,

"why, God Almighty'll have to shovel gravel along with him into the sluiceboxes."

"Dot iss goot," Olaf Henderson muttered, regarding the gambler with profound admiration.

"Ver' good," affirmed French Louis. "I t'ink we take a drink on dat one time, eh?"

It was two in the morning when the dancers, bent on getting something to eat, adjourned the dancing for half

an hour. And it was at this moment that Jack Kearns suggested poker. Jack Kearns was a big, blufffeatured

man, who, along with Bettles, had made the disastrous attempt to found a post on the headreaches of the

Koyokuk, far inside the Arctic Circle. After that, Kearns had fallen back on his posts at Forty Mile and Sixty

Mile and changed the direction of his ventures by sending out to the States for a small sawmill and a river

steamer. The former was even then being sledded across Chilcoot Pass by Indians and dogs, and would come

down the Yukon in the early summer after the icerun. Later in the summer, when Bering Sea and the mouth

of the Yukon cleared of ice, the steamer, put together at St. Michaels, was to be expected up the river loaded

Jack Kearns suggested poker. French Louis, Dan MacDonald, and Hal Campbell (who had make a strike on

Moosehide), all three of whom were not dancing because there were not girls enough to go around, inclined

to the suggestion. They were looking for a fifth man when Burning Daylight emerged from the rear room, the

Virgin on his arm, the train of dancers in his wake. In response to the hail of the pokerplayers, he came over

"I sure got it tonight," Burning Daylight answered with enthusiasm, and at the same time felt the Virgin

press his arm warningly. She wanted him for the dancing. "I sure got my luck with me, but I'd sooner dance. I

Nobody urged. They took his refusal as final, and the Virgin was pressing his arm to turn him away in pursuit

of the supperseekers, when he experienced a change of heart. It was not that he did not want to dance, nor

that he wanted to hurt her; but that insistent pressure on his arm put his free mannature in revolt. The

thought in his mind was that he did not want any woman running him. Himself a favorite with women,

nevertheless they did not bulk big with him. They were toys, playthings, part of the relaxation from the

bigger game of life. He met women along with the whiskey and gambling, and from observation he had

found that it was far easier to break away from the drink and the cards than from a woman once the man was

He was a slave to himself, which was natural in one with a healthy ego, but he rebelled in ways either

murderous or panicky at being a slave to anybody else. Love's sweet servitude was a thing of which he had

no comprehension. Men he had seen in love impressed him as lunatics, and lunacy was a thing he had never

considered worth analyzing. But comradeship with men was different from love with women. There was no

servitude in comradeship. It was a business proposition, a square deal between men who did not pursue each

other, but who shared the risks of trail and river and mountain in the pursuit of life and treasure. Men and

women pursued each other, and one must needs bend the other to his will or hers. Comradeship was different.

There was no slavery about it; and though he, a strong man beyond strength's seeming, gave far more than he

received, he gave not something due but in royal largess, his gifts of toil or heroic effort falling generously

from his hands. To pack for days over the galeswept passes or across the mosquitoridden marshes, and to

pack double the weight his comrade packed, did not involve unfairness or compulsion. Each did his best.

That was the business essence of it. Some men were stronger than otherstrue; but so long as each man did

his best it was fair exchange, the business spirit was observed, and the square deal obtained.

But with womenno. Women gave little and wanted all. Women had apronstrings and were prone to tie

them about any man who looked twice in their direction. There was the Virgin, yawning her head off when he

came in and mightily pleased that he asked her to dance. One dance was all very well, but because he danced

twice and thrice with her and several times more, she squeezed his arm when they asked him to sit in at

poker. It was the obnoxious apronstring, the first of the many compulsions she would exert upon him if he

gave in. Not that she was not a nice bit of a woman, healthy and strapping and good to look upon, also a very

excellent dancer, but that she was a woman with all a woman's desire to rope him with her apronstrings and

tie him hand and foot for the branding. Better poker. Besides, he liked poker as well as he did dancing.

Again came the pull on his arm. She was trying to pass the apronstring around him. For the fraction of an

instant he was a savage, dominated by the wave of fear and murder that rose up in him. For that infinitesimal

space of time he was to all purposes a frightened tiger filled with rage and terror at the apprehension of the

trap. Had he been no more than a savage, he would have leapt wildly from the place or else sprung upon her

and destroyed her. But in that same instant there stirred in him the generations of discipline by which man

had become an inadequate social animal. Tact and sympathy strove with him, and he smiled with his eyes

"Youall go and get some grub. I ain't hungry. And we'll dance some more by and by. The night's young yet.

He released his arm and thrust her playfully on the shoulder, at the same time turning to the pokerplayers.

Elam Harnish dropped into the waiting chair, started to pull out his goldsack, and changed his mind. The

He nodded. She was smiling her forgiveness. He had escaped the apronstring, and without hurting her

"Let's play markers," he suggested. "Chips do everlastingly clutter up the table....If it's agreeable to youall?"

"Mine, too," answered Harnish, while the others stated the values they put on their own markers, French

In Alaska, at that time, there were no rascals and no tinhorn gamblers. Games were conducted honestly, and

men trusted one another. A man's word was as good as his gold in the blower. A marker was a flat, oblong

composition chip worth, perhaps, a cent. But when a man betted a marker in a game and said it was worth

five hundred dollars, it was accepted as worth five hundred dollars. Whoever won it knew that the man who

issued it would redeem it with five hundred dollars' worth of dust weighed out on the scales. The markers

being of different colors, there was no difficulty in identifying the owners. Also, in that early Yukon day, no

one dreamed of playing tablestakes. A man was good in a game for all that he possessed, no matter where

Harnish cut and got the deal. At this good augury, and while shuffling the deck, he called to the barkeepers to

set up the drinks for the house. As he dealt the first card to Dan MacDonald, on his left, he called out:

"Get down to the ground, youall, Malemutes, huskies, and Siwash purps! Get down and dig in! Tighten up

them traces! Put your weight into the harness and bust the breastbands! Whoopla! Yow! We're off and

bound for Helen Breakfast! And I tell youall clear and plain there's goin' to be stiff grades and fast goin'

Once started, it was a quiet game, with little or no conversation, though all about the players the place was

aroar. Elam Harnish had ignited the spark. More and more miners dropped in to the Tivoli and remained.

When Burning Daylight went on the tear, no man cared to miss it. The dancingfloor was full. Owing to the

shortage of women, many of the men tied bandanna handkerchiefs around their arms in token of femininity

and danced with other men. All the games were crowded, and the voices of the men talking at the long bar

and grouped about the stove were accompanied by the steady click of chips and the sharp whir, rising and

falling, of the rouletteball. All the materials of a proper Yukon night were at hand and mixing.

The luck at the table varied monotonously, no big hands being out. As a result, high play went on with small

hands though no play lasted long. A filled straight belonging to French Louis gave him a pot of five thousand

against two sets of threes held by Campbell and Kearns. One pot of eight hundred dollars was won by a pair

of trays on a showdown. And once Harnish called Kearns for two thousand dollars on a cold steal. When

Kearns laid down his hand it showed a bobtail flush, while Harnish's hand proved that he had had the nerve to

It was the moment of moments that men wait weeks for in a poker game. The news of it tingled over the

Tivoli. The onlookers became quiet. The men farther away ceased talking and moved over to the table. The

players deserted the other games, and the dancingfloor was forsaken, so that all stood at last, fivescore and

more, in a compact and silent group, around the pokertable. The high betting had begun before the draw,

and still the high betting went on, with the draw not in sight. Kearns had dealt, and French Louis had opened

the pot with one markerin his case one hundred dollars. Campbell had merely "seen" it, but Elam Harnish,

corning next, had tossed in five hundred dollars, with the remark to MacDonald that he was letting him in

MacDonald, glancing again at his hand, put in a thousand in markers. Kearns, debating a long time over his

hand, finally "saw." It then cost French Louis nine hundred to remain in the game, which he contributed after

a similar debate. It cost Campbell likewise nine hundred to remain and draw cards, but to the surprise of all

"Youall are on the grade at last," Harnish remarked, as he saw the fifteen hundred and raised a thousand in

turn. "Helen Breakfast's sure on top this divide, and youall had best look out for bustin' harness."

"Me for that same lady," accompanied MacDonald's markers for two thousand and for an additional

It was at this stage that the players sat up and knew beyond peradventure that big hands were out. Though

their features showed nothing, each man was beginning unconsciously to tense. Each man strove to appear

his natural self, and each natural self was different. Hal Campbell affected his customary cautiousness.

French Louis betrayed interest. MacDonald retained his wholesouled benevolence, though it seemed to take

on a slightly exaggerated tone. Kearns was coolly dispassionate and noncommittal, while Elam Harnish

appeared as quizzical and jocular as ever. Eleven thousand dollars were already in the pot, and the markers

"I ain't go no more markers," Kearns remarked plaintively. "We'd best begin I.O.U.'s."

"It'll cost you three thousand for a look in, but nobody will stop you from raising."

"Raisehell. You must think I got a pat like yourself." Kearns looked at his hand. "But I'll tell you what I'll

He wrote the sum on a slip of paper, signed his name, and consigned it to the centre of the table.

French Louis became the focus of all eyes. He fingered his cards nervously for a space. Then, with a "By

Gar! Ah got not one leetle beet hunch," he regretfully tossed his hand into the discards.

"I won't hump you, Jack," he said, contenting himself with calling the requisite two thousand.

The eyes shifted to Harnish, who scribbled on a piece of paper and shoved it forward.

"I'll just let youall know this ain't no Sundayschool society of philanthropy," he said. "I see you, Jack, and

"Action's what I fatten on, and I lift another thousand," was MacDonald's rejoinder. "Still got that hunch,

"I still got the hunch." Kearns fingered his cards a long time. "And I'll play it, but you've got to know how I

stand. There's my steamer, the Bellaworth twenty thousand if she's worth an ounce. There's Sixty Mile

with five thousand in stock on the shelves. And you know I got a sawmill coming in. It's at Linderman now,

"Dig in; you're sure good," was Daylight's answer. "And while we're about it, I may mention casual that I got

twenty thousand in Mac's safe, there, and there's twenty thousand more in the ground on Moosehide. You

"It's an almighty good hunch," Kearns said, adding his slip for two thousand to the growing heap. "I can feel

"I ain't got a hunch, but I got a tolerable likeable hand," Campbell announced, as he slid in his slip; "but it's

"Mine is," Daylight paused and wrote. "I see that thousand and raise her the same old thousand."

The Virgin, standing behind him, then did what a man's best friend was not privileged to do. Reaching over

Daylight's shoulder, she picked up his hand and read it, at the same time shielding the faces of the five cards

close to his chest. What she saw were three queens and a pair of eights, but nobody guessed what she saw.

Every player's eyes were on her face as she scanned the cards, but no sign did she give. Her features might

have been carved from ice, for her expression was precisely the same before, during, and after. Not a muscle

quivered; nor was there the slightest dilation of a nostril, nor the slightest increase of light in the eyes. She

laid the hand face down again on the table, and slowly the lingering eyes withdrew from her, having learned

MacDonald smiled benevolently. "I see you, Daylight, and I hump this time for two thousand. How's that

"Still acrawling, Mac. You got me now, but that hunch is a ripsnorter persuadin' sort of a critter, and it's

my plain duty to ride it. I call for three thousand. And I got another hunch: Daylight's going to call, too."

"He sure is," Daylight agreed, after Campbell had thrown up his hand. "He knows when he's up against it,

In a dead silence, save for the low voices of the three players, the draw was made. Thirtyfour thousand

dollars were already in the pot, and the play possibly not half over. To the Virgin's amazement, Daylight held

up his three queens, discarding his eights and calling for two cards. And this time not even she dared look at

what he had drawn. She knew her limit of control. Nor did he look. The two new cards lay face down on the

"I never bet in the teeth of a pat hand," he said slowly, looking at the saloonkeeper. "Youall start her

MacDonald counted his cards carefully, to make doubles sure it was not a foul hand, wrote a sum on a paper

Kearns, with every eye upon him, looked at his twocard draw, counted the other three to dispel any doubt of

"I see you, Mac," he said, "and I raise her a little thousand just so as not to keep Daylight out."

The concentrated gaze shifted to Daylight. He likewise examined his draw and counted his five cards.

"I see that six thousand, and I raise her five thousand...just to try and keep you out, Jack."

"And I raise you five thousand just to lend a hand at keeping Jack out," MacDonald said, in turn.

His voice was slightly husky and strained, and a nervous twitch in the corner of his mouth followed speech.

Kearns was pale, and those who looked on noted that his hand trembled as he wrote his slip. But his voice

Daylight was now the centre. The kerosene lamps above flung high lights from the rash of sweat on his

forehead. The bronze of his cheeks was darkened by the accession of blood. His black eyes glittered, and his

nostrils were distended and eager. They were large nostrils, tokening his descent from savage ancestors who

had survived by virtue of deep lungs and generous airpassages. Yet, unlike MacDonald, his voice was firm

"I call, for ten thousand," he said. "Not that I'm afraid of youall, Mac. It's that hunch of Jack's."

"I hump his hunch for five thousand just the same," said MacDonald. "I had the best hand before the draw,

"Mebbe this is a case where a hunch after the draw is better'n the hunch before," Kearns remarked;

"wherefore duty says, 'Lift her, Jack, lift her,' and so I lift her another five thousand."

Daylight leaned back in his chair and gazed up at the kerosene lamps while he computed aloud.

"I was in nine thousand before the draw, and I saw and raised eleven thousandthat makes thirty. I'm only

"You can raise if you want," Kearns answered. "Your dogs are good for five thousand in this game."

"Nary dawg. Youall can win my dust and dirt, but nary one of my dawgs. I just call."

Not a muscle was relaxed on the part of the onlookers. Not the weight of a body shifted from one leg to the

other. It was a sacred silence. Only could be heard the roaring draft of the huge stove, and from without,

muffled by the logwalls, the howling of dogs. It was not every night that high stakes were played on the

Yukon, and for that matter, this was the highest in the history of the country. The saloonkeeper finally

Not one of them claimed the pot, and not one of them called the size of his hand. Simultaneously and in

silence they faced their cards on the table, while a general tiptoeing and craning of necks took place among

the onlookers. Daylight showed four queens and an ace; MacDonald four jacks and an ace; and Kearns four

kings and a trey. Kearns reached forward with an encircling movement of his arm and drew the pot in to him,

Daylight picked the ace from his hand and tossed it over alongside MacDonald's ace, saying:

"That's what cheered me along, Mac. I knowed it was only kings that could beat me, and he had them.

"You bet! You could a' made a straight, a straight flush, or a flush out of it."

"That's what I thought," Campbell said sadly. "It cost me six thousand before I quit."

"I wisht youall'd drawn," Daylight laughed. "Then I wouldn't a' caught that fourth queen. Now I've got to

take Billy Rawlins' mail contract and mush for Dyea. What's the size of the killing, Jack?"

Kearns attempted to count the pot, but was too excited. Daylight drew it across to him, with firm fingers

separating and stacking the markers and I.O.U.'s and with clear brain adding the sum.

"One hundred and twentyseven thousand," he announced. "Youall can sell out now, Jack, and head for

"I'd shout the drinks," MacDonald said, "only the house don't belong to me any more."

"Yes, it does," Kearns replied, first wetting his lips with his tongue. "Your note's good for any length of time.

"Name your snakejuice, youallthe winner pays!" Daylight called out loudly to all about him, at the same

time rising from his chair and catching the Virgin by the arm. "Come on for a reel, youall dancers. The

night's young yet, and it's Helen Breakfast and the mail contract for me in the morning. Here, youall

Rawlins, youI hereby do take over that same contract, and I start for salt water at nine A.M.savvee?

It was Daylight's night. He was the centre and the head of the revel, unquenchably joyous, a contagion of fun.

He multiplied himself, and in so doing multiplied the excitement. No prank he suggested was too wild for his

followers, and all followed save those that developed into singing imbeciles and fell warbling by the wayside.

Yet never did trouble intrude. It was known on the Yukon that when Burning Daylight made a night of it,

wrath and evil were forbidden. On his nights men dared not quarrel. In the younger days such things had

happened, and then men had known what real wrath was, and been manhandled as only Burning Daylight

could manhandle. On his nights men must laugh and be happy or go home. Daylight was inexhaustible. In

between dances he paid over to Kearns the twenty thousand in dust and transferred to him his Moosehide

claim. Likewise he arranged the taking over of Billy Rawlins' mail contract, and made his preparations for the

start. He despatched a messenger to rout out Kama, his dogdrivera Tananaw Indian, farwandered from

his tribal home in the service of the invading whites. Kama entered the Tivoli, tall, lean, muscular, and

furclad, the pick of his barbaric race and barbaric still, unshaken and unabashed by the revellers that rioted

about him while Daylight gave his orders. "Um," said Kama, tabling his instructions on his fingers. "Get um

letters from Rawlins. Load um on sled. Grub for Selkirkyou think um plenty doggrub stop Selkirk?"

"Um, bring sled this place nine um clock. Bring um snowshoes. No bring um tent. Mebbe bring um fly? um

"We travel lightsavvee? We carry plenty letters out, plenty letters back. You are strong man. Plenty cold,

He turned on his moccasined heel and walked out, imperturbable, sphinxlike, neither giving nor receiving

greetings nor looking to right or left. The Virgin led Daylight away into a corner.

But Daylight interrupted. The apronstring loomed near and he shied like an unbroken colt.

"It don't matter," he said. "Busted I came into the world, busted I go out, and I've been busted most of the

"But listen," she urged. "My money's doing nothing. I could lend it to youa grubstake," she added

"Nobody grubstakes me," was the answer. "I stake myself, and when I make a killing it's sure all mine. No

thank you, old girl. Much obliged. I'll get my stake by running the mail out and in."

But with a sudden wellassumed ebullition of spirits he drew her toward the dancingfloor, and as they

swung around and around in a waltz she pondered on the iron heart of the man who held her in his arms and

At six the next morning, scorching with whiskey, yet ever himself, he stood at the bar putting every man's

hand down. The way of it was that two men faced each other across a corner, their right elbows resting on the

bar, their right hands gripped together, while each strove to press the other's hand down. Man after man came

against him, but no man put his hand down, even Olaf Henderson and French Louis failing despite their

hugeness. When they contended it was a trick, a trained muscular knack, he challenged them to another test.

"Look here, youall" he cried. "I'm going to do two things: first, weigh my sack; and second, bet it that after

youall have lifted clean from the floor all the sacks of flour youall are able, I'll put on two more sacks and

"Hold on!" Olaf Henderson cried. "I ban yust as good as you, Louis. I yump half that bet."

Put on the scales, Daylight's sack was found to balance an even four hundred dollars, and Louis and Olaf

divided the bet between them. Fiftypound sacks of flour were brought in from MacDonald's cache. Other

men tested their strength first. They straddled on two chairs, the flour sacks beneath them on the floor and

held together by ropelashings. Many of the men were able, in this manner, to lift four or five hundred

pounds, while some succeeded with as high as six hundred. Then the two giants took a hand, tying at seven

hundred. French Louis then added another sack, and swung seven hundred and fifty clear. Olaf duplicated the

performance, whereupon both failed to clear eight hundred. Again and again they strove, their foreheads

beaded with sweat, their frames crackling with the effort. Both were able to shift the weight and to bump it,

"By Gar! Daylight, dis tam you mek one beeg meestake," French Louis said, straightening up and stepping

down from the chairs. "Only one damn iron man can do dat. One hundred pun' moremy frien', not ten

poun' more." The sacks were unlashed, but when two sacks were added, Kearns interfered. "Only one sack

"What's the good of youall botherin' around that way? What's one more sack? If I can't lift three more, I sure

He stood upon the chairs, squatted, and bent his shoulders down till his hands closed on the rope. He shifted

his feet slightly, tautened his muscles with a tentative pull, then relaxed again, questing for a perfect

Daylight's muscles tautened a second time, and this time in earnest, until steadily all the energy of his

splendid body was applied, and quite imperceptibly, without jerk or strain, the bulky nine hundred pounds

Olaf Henderson sighed a vast audible sigh. The Virgin, who had tensed unconsciously till her muscles hurt

"Weigh in!" he cried, tossing his sack to the weigher, who transferred to it four hundred dollars from the

"Surge up, everybody!" Daylight went on. "Name your snakejuice! The winner pays!"

"This is my night! " he was shouting, ten minutes later. "I'm the lone hewolf, and I've seen thirty winters.

This is my birthday, my one day in the year, and I can put any man on his back. Come on, youall! I'm going

to put youall in the snow. Come on, you chechaquos [1] and sourdoughs[2], and get your baptism!"

The rout streamed out of doors, all save the barkeepers and the singing Bacchuses. Some fleeting thought of

saving his own dignity entered MacDonald's head, for he approached Daylight with outstretched hand.

"What? You first?" Daylight laughed, clasping the other's hand as if in greeting.

"No, no," the other hurriedly disclaimed. "Just congratulations on your birthday. Of course you can put me in

MacDonald weighed one hundred and eighty pounds, and Daylight had him gripped solely by his hand; yet,

by a sheer abrupt jerk, he took the saloonkeeper off his feet and flung him face downward in the snow. In

quick succession, seizing the men nearest him, he threw half a dozen more. Resistance was useless. They

flew helterskelter out of his grips, landing in all manner of attitudes, grotesquely and harmlessly, in the soft

snow. It soon became difficult, in the dim starlight, to distinguish between those thrown and those waiting

their turn, and he began feeling their backs and shoulders, determining their status by whether or not he found

"Baptized yet?" became his stereotyped question, as he reached out his terrible hands.

Several score lay down in the snow in a long row, while many others knelt in mock humility, scooping snow

upon their heads and claiming the rite accomplished. But a group of five stood upright, backwoodsmen and

Graduates of the hardest of manhandling schools, veterans of multitudes of roughandtumble battles, men

of blood and sweat and endurance, they nevertheless lacked one thing that Daylight possessed in high

degreenamely, an almost perfect brain and muscular coordination. It was simple, in its way, and no virtue

of his. He had been born with this endowment. His nerves carried messages more quickly than theirs; his

mental processes, culminating in acts of will, were quicker than theirs; his muscles themselves, by some

immediacy of chemistry, obeyed the messages of his will quicker than theirs. He was so made, his muscles

were highpower explosives. The levers of his body snapped into play like the jaws of steel traps. And in

addition to all this, his was that superstrength that is the dower of but one human in millionsa strength

depending not on size but on degree, a supreme organic excellence residing in the stuff of the muscles

themselves. Thus, so swiftly could he apply a stress, that, before an opponent could become aware and resist,

the aim of the stress had been accomplished. In turn, so swiftly did he become aware of a stress applied to

him, that he saved himself by resistance or by delivering a lightning counterstress.

"It ain't no use youall standing there," Daylight addressed the waiting group. "Youall might as well get

right down and take your baptizing. Youall might down me any other day in the year, but on my birthday I

want youall to know I'm the best man. Is that Pat Hanrahan's mug looking hungry and willing? Come on,

Pat." Pat Hanrahan, exbareknuckleprize fighter and roughhouseexpert, stepped forth. The two men

came against each other in grips, and almost before he had exerted himself the Irishman found himself in the

merciless vise of a halfNelson that buried him head and shoulders in the snow. Joe Hines, exlumberjack,

came down with an impact equal to a fall from a twostory buildinghis overthrow accomplished by a

crossbuttock, delivered, he claimed, before he was ready. There was nothing exhausting in all this to

Daylight. He did not heave and strain through long minutes. No time, practically, was occupied. His body

exploded abruptly and terrifically in one instant, and on the next instant was relaxed. Thus, Doc Watson, the

graybearded, iron bodied man without a past, a fighting terror himself, was overthrown in the fraction of a

second preceding his own onslaught. As he was in the act of gathering himself for a spring, Daylight was

upon him, and with such fearful suddenness as to crush him backward and down. Olaf Henderson, receiving

his cue from this, attempted to take Daylight unaware, rushing upon him from one side as he stooped with

extended hand to help Doc Watson up. Daylight dropped on his hands and knees, receiving in his side Olaf's

knees. Olaf's momentum carried him clear over the obstruction in a long, flying fall. Before he could rise,

Daylight had whirled him over on his back and was rubbing his face and ears with snow and shoving

handfuls down his neck. "Ay ban yust as good a man as you ban, Daylight," Olaf spluttered, as he pulled

himself to his feet; "but by Yupiter, I ban navver see a grip like that." French Louis was the last of the five,

and he had seen enough to make him cautious. He circled and baffled for a full minute before coming to

grips; and for another full minute they strained and reeled without either winning the advantage. And then,

just as the contest was becoming interesting, Daylight effected one of his lightning shifts, changing all

stresses and leverages and at the same time delivering one of his muscular explosions. French Louis resisted

till his huge frame crackled, and then, slowly, was forced over and under and downward.

"The winner pays!" Daylight cried; as he sprang to his feet and led the way back into the Tivoli. "Surge along

They lined up against the long bar, in places two or three deep, stamping the frost from their moccasined feet,

for outside the temperature was sixty below. Bettles, himself one of the gamest of the oldtimers in deeds and

daring ceased from his drunken lay of the "Sassafras Root," and titubated over to congratulate Daylight. But

in the midst of it he felt impelled to make a speech, and raised his voice oratorically.

"I tell you fellers I'm plum proud to call Daylight my friend. We've hit the trail together afore now, and he's

eighteen carat from his moccasins up, damn his mangy old hide, anyway. He was a shaver when he first hit

this country. When you fellers was his age, you wa'n't dry behind the ears yet. He never was no kid. He was

born a fullgrown man. An' I tell you a man had to be a man in them days. This wa'n't no effete civilization

like it's come to be now." Bettles paused long enough to put his arm in a proper bearhug around Daylight's

neck. "When you an' me mushed into the Yukon in the good ole days, it didn't rain soup and they wa'n't no

freelunch joints. Our camp fires was lit where we killed our game, and most of the time we lived on

But at the roar of laughter that greeted his inversion, Bettles released the bearhug and turned fiercely on

them. "Laugh, you mangy shorthorns, laugh! But I tell you plain and simple, the best of you ain't kneehigh

Ain't I right, Campbell? Ain't I right, Mac? Daylight's one of the old guard, one of the real sourdoughs. And

in them days they wa'n't ary a steamboat or ary a tradingpost, and we cusses had to live offen

He gazed triumphantly around, and in the applause that followed arose cries for a speech from Daylight. He

signified his consent. A chair was brought, and he was helped to stand upon it. He was no more sober than

the crowd above which he now towereda wild crowd, uncouthly garmented, every foot moccasined or

muclucked[3], with mittens dangling from necks and with furry earflaps raised so that they took on the

seeming of the winged helmets of the Norsemen. Daylight's black eyes were flashing, and the flush of strong

drink flooded darkly under the bronze of his cheeks. He was greeted with round on round of affectionate

cheers, which brought a suspicious moisture to his eyes, albeit many of the voices were inarticulate and

inebriate. And yet, men have so behaved since the world began, feasting, fighting, and carousing, whether in

the dark cavemouth or by the fire of the squattingplace, in the palaces of imperial Rome and the rock

strongholds of robber barons, or in the skyaspiring hotels of modern times and in the boozingkens of

sailortown. Just so were these men, empirebuilders in the Arctic Light, boastful and drunken and

clamorous, winning surcease for a few wild moments from the grim reality of their heroic toil. Modern heroes

they, and in nowise different from the heroes of old time. "Well, fellows, I don't know what to say to

youall," Daylight began lamely, striving still to control his whirling brain. "I think I'll tell youall a story. I

had a pardner wunst, down in Juneau. He come from North Caroliney, and he used to tell this same story to

me. It was down in the mountains in his country, and it was a wedding. There they was, the family and all the

friends. The parson was just puttin' on the last touches, and he says, 'They as the Lord have joined let no man

put asunder.' [3] Mucluc: a watertight, Eskimo boot, made from walrushide and trimmed with fur.

"'Parson,' says the bridegroom, 'I rises to question your grammar in that there sentence. I want this weddin'

"When the smoke clears away, the bride she looks around and sees a dead parson, a dead bridegroom, a dead

"So she heaves a mighty strong sigh and says, 'Them newfangled, selfcocking revolvers sure has played

"And so I say to youall," Daylight added, as the roar of laughter died down, "that them four kings of Jack

Kearns sure has played hell with my prospects. I'm busted higher'n a kite, and I'm hittin' the trail for Dyea"

"Goin' out?" some one called. A spasm of anger wrought on his face for a flashing instant, but in the next his

"I know youall are only pokin' fun asking such a question," he said, with a smile. "Of course I ain't going

"I sure will. I first come over Chilcoot in '83. I went out over the Pass in a fall blizzard, with a rag of a shirt

and a cup of raw flour. I got my grubstake in Juneau that winter, and in the spring I went over the Pass once

more. And once more the famine drew me out. Next spring I went in again, and I swore then that I'd never

come out till I made my stake. Well, I ain't made it, and here I am. And I ain't going out now. I get the mail

and I come right back. I won't stop the night at Dyea. I'll hit up Chilcoot soon as I change the dogs and get the

mail and grub. And so I swear once more, by the milltails of hell and the head of John the Baptist, I'll never

hit for the Outside till I make my pile. And I tell youall, here and now, it's got to be an almighty big pile."

"How much might you call a pile?" Bettles demanded from beneath, his arms clutched lovingly around

Daylight steadied himself for a moment and debated. "Four or five millions," he said slowly, and held up his

hand for silence as his statement was received with derisive yells. "I'll be real conservative, and put the

bottom notch at a million. And for not an ounce less'n that will I go out of the country."

Again his statement was received with an outburst of derision. Not only had the total gold output of the

Yukon up to date been below five millions, but no man had ever made a strike of a hundred thousand, much

"Youall listen to me. You seen Jack Kearns get a hunch tonight. We had him sure beat before the draw.

His ornery three kings was no good. But he just knew there was another king comingthat was his

hunchand he got it. And I tell youall I got a hunch. There's a big strike coming on the Yukon, and it's just

about due. I don't mean no ornery Moosehide, BirchCreek kind of a strike. I mean a real ripsnorter

hairraiser. I tell youall she's in the air and hellbent for election. Nothing can stop her, and she'll come up

river. There's where youall track my moccasins in the near future if youall want to find mesomewhere

in the country around Stewart River, Indian River, and Klondike River. When I get back with the mail, I'll

head that way so fast youall won't see my trail for smoke. She's acoming, fellows, gold from the grass

roots down, a hundred dollars to the pan, and a stampede in from the Outside fifty thousand strong. Youall'll

He raised his glass to his lips. "Here's kindness, and hoping youall will be in on it."

He drank and stepped down from the chair, falling into another one of Bettles' bearhugs.

"If I was you, Daylight, I wouldn't mush today," Joe Hines counselled, coming in from consulting the spirit

thermometer outside the door. "We're in for a good cold snap. It's sixtytwo below now, and still goin' down.

"Just like you shorthorns," Bettles cried, "afeard of a little frost. And blamed little you know Daylight, if

"Freeze pap and lollypop! Look here, Hines, you only ben in this here country three years. You ain't seasoned

yet. I've seen Daylight do fifty miles up on the Koyokuk on a day when the thermometer busted at

"Them's the kind that does freeze their lungs," he lamented. "If Daylight pulls out before this snap breaks,

he'll never get throughan' him travelin' without tent or fly." "It's a thousand miles to Dyea," Bettles

announced, climbing on the chair and supporting his swaying body by an arm passed around Daylight's neck.

"It's a thousand miles, I'm sayin' an' most of the trail unbroke, but I bet any chechaquoanything he

"That's an average of over thirtythree miles a day," Doc Watson warned, "and I've travelled some myself. A

"Yep," Bettles retorted, "an' Daylight'll do the second thousand back again on end in thirty days more, and I

To emphasize his remarks, he pulled out a goldsack the size of a bologna sausage and thumped it down on

"Hold on!" Daylight cried. "Bettles's right, and I want in on this. I bet five hundred that sixty days from now I

"No charity, Jack," was the reply. "The bettin's even, and the time is sixty days."

"Seventyfive days, and two to one you don't," Kearns insisted. "Fifty Mile'll be wide open and the rimice

"What you win from me is yours," Daylight went on. "And, by thunder, Jack, you can't give it back that way.

I won't bet with you. You're trying to give me money. But I tell youall one thing, Jack, I got another hunch.

I'm goin' to win it back some one of these days. Youall just wait till the big strike up river. Then you and

me'll take the roof off and sit in a game that'll be full man's size. Is it a go?"

"Of course he'll make it," Kearns whispered in Bettles' ear. "And there's five hundred Daylight's back in sixty

"By Yupiter, I ban take that bet," Olaf Henderson said, dragging Daylight away from Bettles and Kearns.

"And I'm sure going to win, and sixty days is a long time between drinks, so I pay now. Name your brand,

Bettles, a glass of whiskey in hand, climbed back on his chair, and swaying back and forth, sang the one song

"O, it's Henry Ward Beecher And Sundayschool teachers All sing of the sassafrasroot; But you bet all the

"But you bet all the same If it had its right name It's the juice of the forbidden fruit."

Daylight paused for nothing, heading for the door and pulling down his earflaps. Kama stood outside by the

sled, a long, narrow affair, sixteen inches wide and seven and a half feet in length, its slatted bottom raised

six inches above the steelshod runners. On it, lashed with thongs of moosehide, were the light canvas bags

that contained the mail, and the food and gear for dogs and men. In front of it, in a single line, lay curled five

frostrimed dogs. They were huskies, matched in size and color, all unusually large and all gray. From their

cruel jaws to their bushy tails they were as like as peas in their likeness to timberwolves. Wolves they were,

domesticated, it was true, but wolves in appearance and in all their characteristics. On top the sled load, thrust

Bettles pointed to a robe of Arctic hare skins, the end of which showed in the mouth of a bag.

"That's his bed," he said. "Six pounds of rabbit skins. Warmest thing he ever slept under, but I'm damned if it

could keep me warm, and I can go some myself. Daylight's a hellfire furnace, that's what he is."

"He'll kill'm, he'll kill'm sure," Bettles chanted exultantly. "I know. I've ben with Daylight on trail. That man

ain't never ben tired in his life. Don't know what it means. I seen him travel all day with wet socks at forty

While this talk went on, Daylight was saying goodby to those that clustered around him. The Virgin wanted

to kiss him, and, fuddled slightly though he was with the whiskey, he saw his way out without compromising

with the apronstring. He kissed the Virgin, but he kissed the other three women with equal partiality. He

pulled on his long mittens, roused the dogs to their feet, and took his Place at the gee pole.[4]

[4] A geepole: stout pole projecting forward from one side of the front end of the sled, by which the sled is

The animals threw their weights against their breastbands on the instant, crouching low to the snow, and

digging in their claws. They whined eagerly, and before the sled had gone half a dozen lengths both Daylight

and Kama (in the rear) were running to keep up. And so, running, man and dogs dipped over the bank and

On the river, where was a packed trail and where snowshoes were unnecessary, the dogs averaged six miles

an hour. To keep up with them, the two men were compelled to run. Daylight and Kama relieved each other

regularly at the geepole, for here was the hard work of steering the flying sled and of keeping in advance of

it. The man relieved dropped behind the sled, occasionally leaping upon it and resting.

They were flying, getting over the ground, making the most of the packed trail. Later on they would come to

the unbroken trail, where three miles an hour would constitute good going. Then there would be no riding and

resting, and no running. Then the geepole would be the easier task, and a man would come back to it to rest

after having completed his spell to the fore, breaking trail with the snowshoes for the dogs. Such work was

far from exhilarating also, they must expect places where for miles at a time they must toil over chaotic

icejams, where they would be fortunate if they made two miles an hour. And there would be the inevitable

bad jams, short ones, it was true, but so bad that a mile an hour would require terrific effort. Kama and

Daylight did not talk. In the nature of the work they could not, nor in their own natures were they given to

talking while they worked. At rare intervals, when necessary, they addressed each other in monosyllables,

Kama, for the most part, contenting himself with grunts. Occasionally a dog whined or snarled, but in the

main the team kept silent. Only could be heard the sharp, jarring grate of the steel runners over the hard

As if through a wall, Daylight had passed from the hum and roar of the Tivoli into another worlda world of

silence and immobility. Nothing stirred. The Yukon slept under a coat of ice three feet thick. No breath of

wind blew. Nor did the sap move in the hearts of the spruce trees that forested the river banks on either hand.

The trees, burdened with the last infinitesimal pennyweight of snow their branches could hold, stood in

absolute petrifaction. The slightest tremor would have dislodged the snow, and no snow was dislodged. The

sled was the one point of life and motion in the midst of the solemn quietude, and the harsh churn of its

It was a dead world, and furthermore, a gray world. The weather was sharp and clear; there was no moisture

in the atmosphere, no fog nor haze; yet the sky was a gray pall. The reason for this was that, though there was

no cloud in the sky to dim the brightness of day, there was no sun to give brightness. Far to the south the sun

climbed steadily to meridian, but between it and the frozen Yukon intervened the bulge of the earth. The

Yukon lay in a night shadow, and the day itself was in reality a long twilightlight. At a quarter before

twelve, where a wide bend of the river gave a long vista south, the sun showed its upper rim above the

skyline. But it did not rise perpendicularly. Instead, it rose on a slant, so that by high noon it had barely

lifted its lower rim clear of the horizon. It was a dim, wan sun. There was no heat to its rays, and a man could

gaze squarely into the full orb of it without hurt to his eyes. No sooner had it reached meridian than it began

its slant back beneath the horizon, and at quarter past twelve the earth threw its shadow again over the land.

The men and dogs raced on. Daylight and Kama were both savages so far as their stomachs were concerned.

They could eat irregularly in time and quantity, gorging hugely on occasion, and on occasion going long

stretches without eating at all. As for the dogs, they ate but once a day, and then rarely did they receive more

than a pound each of dried fish. They were ravenously hungry and at the same time splendidly in condition.

Like the wolves, their forebears, their nutritive processes were rigidly economical and perfect. There was no

waste. The last least particle of what they consumed was transformed into energy.

And Kama and Daylight were like them. Descended themselves from the generations that had endured, they,

too, endured. Theirs was the simple, elemental economy. A little food equipped them with prodigious energy.

Nothing was lost. A man of soft civilization, sitting at a desk, would have grown lean and woebegone on the

fare that kept Kama and Daylight at the topnotch of physical efficiency. They knew, as the man at the desk

never knows, what it is to be normally hungry all the time, so that they could eat any time. Their appetites

were always with them and on edge, so that they bit voraciously into whatever offered and with an entire

By three in the afternoon the long twilight faded into night. The stars came out, very near and sharp and

bright, and by their light dogs and men still kept the trail. They were indefatigable. And this was no record

run of a single day, but the first day of sixty such days. Though Daylight had passed a night without sleep, a

night of dancing and carouse, it seemed to have left no effect. For this there were two explanations first, his

remarkable vitality; and next, the fact that such nights were rare in his experience. Again enters the man at the

desk, whose physical efficiency would be more hurt by a cup of coffee at bedtime than could Daylight's by a

Daylight travelled without a watch, feeling the passage of time and largely estimating it by subconscious

processes. By what he considered must be six o'clock, he began looking for a campingplace. The trail, at a

bend, plunged out across the river. Not having found a likely spot, they held on for the opposite bank a mile

away. But midway they encountered an icejam which took an hour of heavy work to cross. At last Daylight

glimpsed what he was looking for, a dead tree close by the bank. The sled was run in and up. Kama grunted

The division of labor was excellent. Each knew what he must do. With one ax Daylight chopped down the

dead pine. Kama, with a snowshoe and the other ax, cleared away the two feet of snow above the Yukon ice

and chopped a supply of ice for cooking purposes. A piece of dry birch bark started the fire, and Daylight

went ahead with the cooking while the Indian unloaded the sled and fed the dogs their ration of dried fish.

The food sacks he slung high in the trees beyond leapingreach of the huskies. Next, he chopped down a

young spruce tree and trimmed off the boughs. Close to the fire he trampled down the soft snow and covered

the packed space with the boughs. On this flooring he tossed his own and Daylight's gearbags, containing

dry socks and underwear and their sleepingrobes. Kama, however, had two robes of rabbit skin to Daylight's

They worked on steadily, without speaking, losing no time. Each did whatever was needed, without thought

of leaving to the other the least task that presented itself to hand. Thus, Kama saw when more ice was needed

and went and got it, while a snowshoe, pushed over by the lunge of a dog, was stuck on end again by

Daylight. While coffee was boiling, bacon frying, and flapjacks were being mixed, Daylight found time to

put on a big pot of beans. Kama came back, sat down on the edge of the spruce boughs, and in the interval of

"I t'ink dat Skookum and Booga make um plenty fight maybe," Kama remarked, as they sat down to eat.

And this was their sole conversation throughout the meal. Once, with a muttered imprecation, Kama leaped

away, a stick of firewood in hand, and clubbed apart a tangle of fighting dogs. Daylight, between mouthfuls,

fed chunks of ice into the tin pot, where it thawed into water. The meal finished, Kama replenished the fire,

cut more wood for the morning, and returned to the spruce bough bed and his harnessmending. Daylight cut

up generous chunks of bacon and dropped them in the pot of bubbling beans. The moccasins of both men

were wet, and this in spite of the intense cold; so when there was no further need for them to leave the oasis

of spruce boughs, they took off their moccasins and hung them on short sticks to dry before the fire, turning

them about from time to time. When the beans were finally cooked, Daylight ran part of them into a bag of

floursacking a foot and a half long and three inches in diameter. This he then laid on the snow to freeze. The

It was past nine o'clock, and they were ready for bed. The squabbling and bickering among the dogs had long

since died down, and the weary animals were curled in the snow, each with his feet and nose bunched

together and covered by his wolf's brush of a tail. Kama spread his sleepingfurs and lighted his pipe.

Daylight rolled a brownpaper cigarette, and the second conversation of the evening took place.

They rolled into their robes, allstanding, each with a woolen Mackinaw jacket on in place of the parkas[5]

they had worn all day. Swiftly, almost on the instant they closed their eyes, they were asleep. The stars leaped

and danced in the frosty air, and overhead the colored bars of the aurora borealis were shooting like great

In the darkness Daylight awoke and roused Kama. Though the aurora still flamed, another day had begun.

Warmedover flapjacks, warmedover beans, fried bacon, and coffee composed the breakfast. The dogs got

nothing, though they watched with wistful mien from a distance, sitting up in the snow, their tails curled

around their paws. Occasionally they lifted one fore paw or the other, with a restless movement, as if the frost

tingled in their feet. It was bitter cold, at least sixtyfive below zero, and when Kama harnessed the dogs with

naked hands he was compelled several times to go over to the fire and warm the numbing fingertips.

Together the two men loaded and lashed the sled. They warmed their hands for the last time, pulled on their

mittens, and mushed the dogs over the bank and down to the rivertrail. According to Daylight's estimate, it

was around seven o'clock; but the stars danced just as brilliantly, and faint, luminous streaks of greenish

Two hours later it became suddenly darkso dark that they kept to the trail largely by instinct; and Daylight

knew that his timeestimate had been right. It was the darkness before dawn, never anywhere more

Slowly the gray light came stealing through the gloom, imperceptibly at first, so that it was almost with

surprise that they noticed the vague loom of the trail underfoot. Next, they were able to see the wheeldog,

and then the whole string of running dogs and snowstretches on either side. Then the near bank loomed for a

moment and was gone, loomed a second time and remained. In a few minutes the far bank, a mile away,

unobtrusively came into view, and ahead and behind, the whole frozen river could be seen, with off to the left

a wideextending range of sharpcut, snowcovered mountains. And that was all. No sun arose. The gray

Once, during the day, a lynx leaped lightly across the trail, under the very nose of the leaddog, and vanished

in the white woods. The dogs' wild impulses roused. They raised the huntingcry of the pack, surged against

their collars, and swerved aside in pursuit. Daylight, yelling "Whoa!" struggled with the geepole and

managed to overturn the sled into the soft snow. The dogs gave up, the sled was righted, and five minutes

later they were flying along the hardpacked trail again. The lynx was the only sign of life they had seen in

two days, and it, leaping velvetfooted and vanishing, had been more like an apparition.

At twelve o'clock, when the sun peeped over the earthbulge, they stopped and built a small fire on the ice.

Daylight, with the ax, chopped chunks off the frozen sausage of beans. These, thawed and warmed in the

fryingpan, constituted their meal. They had no coffee. He did not believe in the burning of daylight for such

a luxury. The dogs stopped wrangling with one another, and looked on wistfully. Only at night did they get

The cold snap continued. Only men of iron kept the trail at such low temperatures, and Kama and Daylight

were picked men of their races. But Kama knew the other was the better man, and thus, at the start, he was

himself foredoomed to defeat. Not that he slackened his effort or willingness by the slightest conscious

degree, but that he was beaten by the burden he carried in his mind. His attitude toward Daylight was

worshipful. Stoical, taciturn, proud of his physical prowess, he found all these qualities incarnated in his

white companion. Here was one that excelled in the things worth excelling in, a mangod ready to hand, and

Kama could not but worshipwithal he gave no signs of it. No wonder the race of white men conquered,

was his thought, when it bred men like this man. What chance had the Indian against such a dogged, enduring

breed? Even the Indians did not travel at such low temperatures, and theirs was the wisdom of thousands of

generations; yet here was this Daylight, from the soft Southland, harder than they, laughing at their fears, and

swinging along the trail ten and twelve hours a day. And this Daylight thought that he could keep up a day's

pace of thirtythree miles for sixty days! Wait till a fresh fall of snow came down, or they struck the

In the meantime Kama kept the pace, never grumbling, never shirking. Sixtyfive degrees below zero is very

cold. Since water freezes at thirtytwo above, sixtyfive below meant ninetyseven degrees below

freezingpoint. Some idea of the significance of this may be gained by conceiving of an equal difference of

temperature in the opposite direction. One hundred and twentynine on the thermometer constitutes a very

hot day, yet such a temperature is but ninetyseven degrees above freezing. Double this difference, and

possibly some slight conception may be gained of the cold through which Kama and Daylight travelled

Kama froze the skin on his cheekbones, despite frequent rubbings, and the flesh turned black and sore. Also

he slightly froze the edges of his lungtissuesa dangerous thing, and the basic reason why a man should

not unduly exert himself in the open at sixtyfive below. But Kama never complained, and Daylight was a

furnace of heat, sleeping as warmly under his six pounds of rabbit skins as the other did under twelve pounds.

On the second night, fifty more miles to the good, they camped in the vicinity of the boundary between

Alaska and the Northwest Territory. The rest of the journey, save the last short stretch to Dyea, would be

travelled on Canadian territory. With the hard trail, and in the absence of fresh snow, Daylight planned to

make the camp of Forty Mile on the fourth night. He told Kama as much, but on the third day the temperature

began to rise, and they knew snow was not far off; for on the Yukon it must get warm in order to snow. Also,

on this day, they encountered ten miles of chaotic icejams, where, a thousand times, they lifted the loaded

sled over the huge cakes by the strength of their arms and lowered it down again. Here the dogs were

wellnigh useless, and both they and the men were tried excessively by the roughness of the way. An hour's

In the morning they awoke to find ten inches of snow on their robes. The dogs were buried under it and were

loath to leave their comfortable nests. This new snow meant hard going. The sled runners would not slide

over it so well, while one of the men must go in advance of the dogs and pack it down with snowshoes so that

they should not wallow. Quite different was it from the ordinary snow known to those of the Southland. It

was hard, and fine, and dry. It was more like sugar. Kick it, and it flew with a hissing noise like sand. There

was no cohesion among the particles, and it could not be moulded into snow balls. It was not composed of

flakes, but of crystalstiny, geometrical frostcrystals. In truth, it was not snow, but frost.

The weather was warm, as well, barely twenty below zero, and the two men, with raised earflaps and

dangling mittens, sweated as they toiled. They failed to make Forty Mile that night, and when they passed

that camp next day Daylight paused only long enough to get the mail and additional grub. On the afternoon of

the following day they camped at the mouth of the Klondike River. Not a soul had they encountered since

Forty Mile, and they had made their own trail. As yet, that winter, no one had travelled the river south of

Forty Mile, and, for that matter, the whole winter through they might be the only ones to travel it. In that day

the Yukon was a lonely land. Between the Klondike River and Salt Water at Dyea intervened six hundred

miles of snowcovered wilderness, and in all that distance there were but two places where Daylight might

look forward to meeting men. Both were isolated tradingposts, Sixty Mile and Fort Selkirk. In the

summertime Indians might be met with at the mouths of the Stewart and White rivers, at the Big and Little

Salmons, and on Lake Le Barge; but in the winter, as he well knew, they would be on the trail of the

That night, camped at the mouth of the Klondike, Daylight did not turn in when the evening's work was done.

Had a white man been present, Daylight would have remarked that he felt his "hunch" working. As it was, he

tied on his snowshoes, left the dogs curled in the snow and Kama breathing heavily under his rabbit skins,

and climbed up to the big flat above the high earthbank. But the spruce trees were too thick for an outlook,

and he threaded his way across the flat and up the first steep slopes of the mountain at the back. Here, flowing

in from the east at right angles, he could see the Klondike, and, bending grandly from the south, the Yukon.

To the left, and downstream, toward Moosehide Mountain, the huge splash of white, from which it took its

name, showing clearly in the starlight. Lieutenant Schwatka had given it its name, but he, Daylight, had first

seen it long before that intrepid explorer had crossed the Chilcoot and rafted down the Yukon.

But the mountain received only passing notice. Daylight's interest was centered in the big flat itself, with

"A sure enough likely town site," he muttered. "Room for a camp of forty thousand men. All that's needed is

the goldstrike." He meditated for a space. "Ten dollars to the pan'll do it, and it'd be the allfiredest

stampede Alaska ever seen. And if it don't come here, it'll come somewhere hereabouts. It's a sure good idea

He stood a while longer, gazing out over the lonely flat and visioning with constructive imagination the scene

if the stampede did come. In fancy, he placed the sawmills, the big trading stores, the saloons, and

dancehalls, and the long streets of miners' cabins. And along those streets he saw thousands of men passing

up and down, while before the stores were the heavy freightingsleds, with long strings of dogs attached.

Also he saw the heavy freighters pulling down the main street and heading up the frozen Klondike toward the

He laughed and shook the vision from his eyes, descended to the level, and crossed the flat to camp. Five

minutes after he had rolled up in his robe, he opened his eyes and sat up, amazed that he was not already

asleep. He glanced at the Indian sleeping beside him, at the embers of the dying fire, at the five dogs beyond,

with their wolf's brushes curled over their noses, and at the four snowshoes standing upright in the snow.

"It's sure hell the way that hunch works on me" he murmured. His mind reverted to the poker game. "Four

He lay down again, pulled the edge of the robe around his neck and over his earflaps, closed his eyes, and

At Sixty Mile they restocked provisions, added a few pounds of letters to their load, and held steadily on.

From Forty Mile they had had unbroken trail, and they could look forward only to unbroken trail clear to

Dyea. Daylight stood it magnificently, but the killing pace was beginning to tell on Kama. His pride kept his

mouth shut, but the result of the chilling of his lungs in the cold snap could not be concealed. Microscopically

small had been the edges of the lungtissue touched by the frost, but they now began to slough off, giving

rise to a dry, hacking cough. Any unusually severe exertion precipitated spells of coughing, during which he

was almost like a man in a fit. The blood congested in his eyes till they bulged, while the tears ran down his

cheeks. A whiff of the smoke from frying bacon would start him off for a halfhour's paroxysm, and he kept

They plodded days upon days and without end over the soft, unpacked snow. It was hard, monotonous work,

with none of the joy and bloodstir that went with flying over hard surface. Now one man to the fore in the

snowshoes, and now the other, it was a case of stubborn, unmitigated plod. A yard of powdery snow had to

be pressed down, and the widewebbed shoe, under a man's weight, sank a full dozen inches into the soft

surface. Snowshoe work, under such conditions, called for the use of muscles other than those used in

ordinary walking. From step to step the rising foot could not come up and forward on a slant. It had to be

raised perpendicularly. When the snowshoe was pressed into the snow, its nose was confronted by a vertical

wall of snow twelve inches high. If the foot, in rising, slanted forward the slightest bit, the nose of the shoe

penetrated the obstructing wall and tipped downward till the heel of the shoe struck the man's leg behind.

Thus up, straight up, twelve inches, each foot must be raised every time and all the time, ere the forward

On this partially packed surface followed the dogs, the man at the geepole, and the sled. At the best, toiling

as only picked men could toil, they made no more than three miles an hour. This meant longer hours of travel,

and Daylight, for good measure and for a margin against accidents, hit the trail for twelve hours a day. Since

three hours were consumed by making camp at night and cooking beans, by getting breakfast in the morning

and breaking camp, and by thawing beans at the midday halt, nine hours were left for sleep and recuperation,

At Selkirk, the trading post near Pelly River, Daylight suggested that Kama lay over, rejoining him on the

back trip from Dyea. A strayed Indian from Lake Le Barge was willing to take his place; but Kama was

obdurate. He grunted with a slight intonation of resentment, and that was all. The dogs, however, Daylight

changed, leaving his own exhausted team to rest up against his return, while he went on with six fresh dogs.

They travelled till ten o'clock the night they reached Selkirk, and at six next morning they plunged ahead into

the next stretch of wilderness of nearly five hundred miles that lay between Selkirk and Dyea. A second cold

snap came on, but cold or warm it was all the same, an unbroken trail. When the thermometer went down to

fifty below, it was even harder to travel, for at that low temperature the hard frostcrystals were more like

sandgrains in the resistance they offered to the sled runners. The dogs had to pull harder than over the same

snow at twenty or thirty below zero. Daylight increased the day's travel to thirteen hours. He jealously

guarded the margin he had gained, for he knew there were difficult stretches to come.

It was not yet quite midwinter, and the turbulent Fifty Mile River vindicated his judgment. In many places it

ran wide open, with precarious rimice fringing it on either side. In numerous places, where the water dashed

against the steepsided bluffs, rimice was unable to form. They turned and twisted, now crossing the river,

now coming back again, sometimes making half a dozen attempts before they found a way over a particularly

bad stretch. It was slow work. The icebridges had to be tested, and either Daylight or Kama went in

advance, snowshoes on their feet, and long poles carried crosswise in their hands. Thus, if they broke

through, they could cling to the pole that bridged the hole made by their bodies. Several such accidents were

the share of each. At fifty below zero, a man wet to the waist cannot travel without freezing; so each ducking

meant delay. As soon as rescued, the wet man ran up and down to keep up his circulation, while his dry

companion built a fire. Thus protected, a change of garments could be made and the wet ones dried against

To make matters worse, this dangerous river travel could not be done in the dark, and their working day was

reduced to the six hours of twilight. Every moment was precious, and they strove never to lose one. Thus,

before the first hint of the coming of gray day, camp was broken, sled loaded, dogs harnessed, and the two

men crouched waiting over the fire. Nor did they make the midday halt to eat. As it was, they were running

far behind their schedule, each day eating into the margin they had run up. There were days when they made

fifteen miles, and days when they made a dozen. And there was one bad stretch where in two days they

covered nine miles, being compelled to turn their backs three times on the river and to portage sled and outfit

At last they cleared the dread Fifty Mile River and came out on Lake Le Barge. Here was no open water nor

jammed ice. For thirty miles or more the snow lay level as a table; withal it lay three feet deep and was soft as

flour. Three miles an hour was the best they could make, but Daylight celebrated the passing of the Fifty Mile

by traveling late. At eleven in the morning they emerged at the foot of the lake. At three in the afternoon, as

the Arctic night closed down, he caught his first sight of the head of the lake, and with the first stars took his

bearings. At eight in the evening they left the lake behind and entered the mouth of the Lewes River. Here a

halt of half an hour was made, while chunks of frozen boiled beans were thawed and the dogs were given an

extra ration of fish. Then they pulled on up the river till one in the morning, when they made their regular

They had hit the trail sixteen hours on end that day, the dogs had come in too tired to fight among themselves

or even snarl, and Kama had perceptibly limped the last several miles; yet Daylight was on trail next morning

at six o'clock. By eleven he was at the foot of White Horse, and that night saw him camped beyond the Box

There was no let up in his pace. Twelve hours a day, six in the twilight, and six in the dark, they toiled on the

trail. Three hours were consumed in cooking, repairing harnesses, and making and breaking camp, and the

remaining nine hours dogs and men slept as if dead. The iron strength of Kama broke. Day by day the terrific

toil sapped him. Day by day he consumed more of his reserves of strength. He became slower of movement,

the resiliency went out of his muscles, and his limp became permanent. Yet he labored stoically on, never

He looked tired; yet somehow, with that marvelous mechanism of a body that was his, he drove on, ever on,

remorselessly on. Never was he more a god in Kama's mind than in the last days of the southbound traverse,

as the failing Indian watched him, ever to the fore, pressing onward with urgency of endurance such as Kama

The time came when Kama was unable to go in the lead and break trail, and it was a proof that he was far

gone when he permitted Daylight to toil all day at the heavy snowshoe work. Lake by lake they crossed the

string of lakes from Marsh to Linderman, and began the ascent of Chilcoot. By all rights, Daylight should

have camped below the last pitch of the pass at the dim end of day; but he kept on and over and down to

Sheep Camp, while behind him raged a snowstorm that would have delayed him twentyfour hours.

This last excessive strain broke Kama completely. In the morning he could not travel. At five, when called,

he sat up after a struggle, groaned, and sank back again. Daylight did the camp work of both, harnessed the

dogs, and, when ready for the start, rolled the helpless Indian in all three sleeping robes and lashed him on top

of the sled. The going was good; they were on the last lap; and he raced the dogs down through Dyea Canon

and along the hardpacked trail that led to Dyea Post. And running still, Kama groaning on top the load, and

Daylight leaping at the geepole to avoid going under the runners of the flying sled, they arrived at Dyea by

True to his promise, Daylight did not stop. An hour's time saw the sled loaded with the ingoing mail and

grub, fresh dogs harnessed, and a fresh Indian engaged. Kama never spoke from the time of his arrival till the

moment Daylight, ready to depart, stood beside him to say goodby. They shook hands.

Kama shook his head doubtfully, and rolled over on his side, turning his back in token of farewell.

Daylight won across Chilcoot that same day, dropping down five hundred feet in the darkness and the

flurrying snow to Crater Lake, where he camped. It was a 'cold' camp, far above the timberline, and he had

not burdened his sled with firewood. That night three feet of snow covered them, and in the black morning,

when they dug themselves out, the Indian tried to desert. He had had enough of traveling with what he

considered a madman. But Daylight persuaded him in grim ways to stay by the outfit, and they pulled on

across Deep Lake and Long Lake and dropped down to the levelgoing of Lake Linderman. It was the same

killing pace going in as coming out, and the Indian did not stand it as well as Kama. He, too, never

complained. Nor did he try again to desert. He toiled on and did his best, while he renewed his resolve to

steer clear of Daylight in the future. The days slipped into days, nights and twilight's alternating, cold snaps

gave way to snowfalls, and cold snaps came on again, and all the while, through the long hours, the miles

But on the Fifty Mile accident befell them. Crossing an icebridge, the dogs broke through and were swept

under the downstream ice. The traces that connected the team with the wheeldog parted, and the team was

never seen again. Only the one wheeldog remained, and Daylight harnessed the Indian and himself to the

sled. But a man cannot take the place of a dog at such work, and the two men were attempting to do the work

of five dogs. At the end of the first hour, Daylight lightened up. Dogfood, extra gear, and the spare ax were

thrown away. Under the extraordinary exertion the dog snapped a tendon the following day, and was

hopelessly disabled. Daylight shot it, and abandoned the sled. On his back he took one hundred and sixty

pounds of mail and grub, and on the Indian's put one hundred and twentyfive pounds. The stripping of gear

was remorseless. The Indian was appalled when he saw every pound of worthless mail matter retained, while

beans, cups, pails, plates, and extra clothing were thrown by the board. One robe each was kept, one ax, one

tin pail, and a scant supply of bacon and flour. Bacon could be eaten raw on a pinch, and flour, stirred in hot

water, could keep men going. Even the rifle and the score of rounds of ammunition were left behind.

And in this fashion they covered the two hundred miles to Selkirk. Daylight travelled late and early, the hours

formerly used by campmaking and dogtending being now devoted to the trail. At night they crouched over

a small fire, wrapped in their robes, drinking flour broth and thawing bacon on the ends of sticks; and in the

morning darkness, without a word, they arose, slipped on their packs, adjusted headstraps, and hit the trail.

The last miles into Selkirk, Daylight drove the Indian before him, a hollowcheeked, gaunteyed wraith of a

At Selkirk, the old team of dogs, fresh and in condition, were harnessed, and the same day saw Daylight

plodding on, alternating places at the geepole, as a matter of course, with the Le Barge Indian who had

volunteered on the way out. Daylight was two days behind his schedule, and falling snow and unpacked trail

kept him two days behind all the way to Forty Mile. And here the weather favored. It was time for a big cold

snap, and he gambled on it, cutting down the weight of grub for dogs and men. The men of Forty Mile shook

their heads ominously, and demanded to know what he would do if the snow still fell.

A number of sleds had passed back and forth already that winter between Forty Mile and Circle City, and the

trail was well packed. And the cold snap came and remained, and Circle City was only two hundred miles

away. The Le Barge Indian was a young man, unlearned yet in his own limitations, and filled with pride.

He took Daylight's pace with joy, and even dreamed, at first, that he would play the white man out. The first

hundred miles he looked for signs of weakening, and marveled that he saw them not.

Throughout the second hundred miles he observed signs in himself, and gritted his teeth and kept up. And

ever Daylight flew on and on, running at the geepole or resting his spell on top the flying sled. The last day,

clearer and colder than ever, gave perfect going, and they covered seventy miles. It was ten at night when

they pulled up the earthbank and flew along the main street of Circle City; and the young Indian, though it

was his spell to ride, leaped off and ran behind the sled. It was honorable braggadocio, and despite the fact

that he had found his limitations and was pressing desperately against them, he ran gamely on.

A crowd filled the Tivolithe old crowd that had seen Daylight depart two months before; for this was the

night of the sixtieth day, and opinion was divided as ever as to whether or not he would compass the

achievement. At ten o'clock bets were still being made, though the odds rose, bet by bet, against his success.

Down in her heart the Virgin believed he had failed, yet she made a bet of twenty ounces with Charley Bates,

There was a general stampede for the door; but where the double stormdoors were thrown wide open, the

crowd fell back. They heard the eager whining of dogs, the snap of a dogwhip, and the voice of Daylight

crying encouragement as the weary animals capped all they had done by dragging the sled in over the

wooden floor. They came in with a rush, and with them rushed in the frost, a visible vapor of smoking white,

through which their heads and backs showed, as they strained in the harness, till they had all the seeming of

swimming in a river. Behind them, at the geepole, came Daylight, hidden to the knees by the swirling frost

He was the same old Daylight, withal lean and tiredlooking, and his black eyes were sparkling and flashing

brighter than ever. His parka of cotton drill hooded him like a monk, and fell in straight lines to his knees.

Grimed and scorched by campsmoke and fire, the garment in itself told the story of his trip. A twomonths'

beard covered his face; and the beard, in turn, was matted with the ice of his breathing through the long

His entry was spectacular, melodramatic; and he knew it. It was his life, and he was living it at the top of his

bent. Among his fellows he was a great man, an Arctic hero. He was proud of the fact, and it was a high

moment for him, fresh from two thousand miles of trail, to come surging into that barroom, dogs, sled, mail,

Indian, paraphernalia, and all. He had performed one more exploit that would make the Yukon ring with his

He experienced a thrill of surprise as the roar of welcome went up and as every familiar detail of the Tivoli

greeted his visionthe long bar and the array of bottles, the gambling games, the big stove, the weigher at

the goldscales, the musicians, the men and women, the Virgin, Celia, and Nellie, Dan MacDonald, Bettles,

It was just as he had left it, and in all seeming it might well be the very day he had left. The sixty days of

incessant travel through the white wilderness suddenly telescoped, and had no existence in time. They were a

moment, an incident. He had plunged out and into them through the wall of silence, and back through the

wall of silence he had plunged, apparently the next instant, and into the roar and turmoil of the Tivoli.

A glance down at the sled with its canvas mailbags was necessary to reassure him of the reality of those

sixty days and the two thousand miles over the ice. As in a dream, he shook the hands that were thrust out to

him. He felt a vast exaltation. Life was magnificent. He loved it all. A great sense of humanness and

comradeship swept over him. These were all his, his own kind. It was immense, tremendous. He felt melting

in the heart of him, and he would have liked to shake hands with them all at once, to gather them to his breast

He drew a deep breath and cried: "The winner pays, and I'm the winner, ain't I? Surge up, youall Malemutes

and Siwashes, and name your poison! There's your Dyea mail, straight from Salt Water, and no hornswogglin

A dozen pairs of hands were at the sledlashings, when the young Le Barge Indian, bending at the same task,

suddenly and limply straightened up. In his eyes was a great surprise. He stared about him wildly, for the

He was profoundly struck by an unguessed limitation. He shook as with a palsy, and he gave at the knees,

slowly sinking down to fall suddenly across the sled and to know the smashing blow of darkness across his

"Exhaustion," said Daylight. "Take him off and put him to bed, some of youall. He's sure a good Indian."

"Daylight's right," was Doc Watson's verdict, a moment later. "The man's plumb tuckered out."

The mail was taken charge of, the dogs driven away to quarters and fed, and Bettles struck up the paean of

the sassafras root as they lined up against the long bar to drink and talk and collect their debts.

A few minutes later, Daylight was whirling around the dancefloor, waltzing with the Virgin. He had

replaced his parka with his fur cap and blanketcloth coat, kicked off his frozen moccasins, and was dancing

in his stocking feet. After wetting himself to the knees late that afternoon, he had run on without changing his

footgear, and to the knees his long German socks were matted with ice. In the warmth of the room it began

to thaw and to break apart in clinging chunks. These chunks rattled together as his legs flew around, and

every little while they fell clattering to the floor and were slipped upon by the other dancers. But everybody

forgave Daylight. He, who was one of the few that made the Law in that far land, who set the ethical pace,

and by conduct gave the standard of right and wrong, was nevertheless above the Law. He was one of those

rare and favored mortals who can do no wrong. What he did had to be right, whether others were permitted or

not to do the same things. Of course, such mortals are so favored by virtue of the fact that they almost always

do the right and do it in finer and higher ways than other men. So Daylight, an elder hero in that young land

and at the same time younger than most of them, moved as a creature apart, as a man above men, as a man

who was greatly man and all man. And small wonder it was that the Virgin yielded herself to his arms, as

they danced dance after dance, and was sick at heart at the knowledge that he found nothing in her more than

a good friend and an excellent dancer. Small consolation it was to know that he had never loved any woman.

She was sick with love of him, and he danced with her as he would dance with any woman, as he would

dance with a man who was a good dancer and upon whose arm was tied a handkerchief to conventionalize

One such man Daylight danced with that night. Among frontiersmen it has always been a test of endurance

for one man to whirl another down; and when Ben Davis, the farodealer, a gaudy bandanna on his arm, got

Daylight in a Virginia reel, the fun began. The reel broke up and all fell back to watch. Around and around

the two men whirled, always in the one direction. Word was passed on into the big barroom, and bar and

gambling tables were deserted. Everybody wanted to see, and they packed and jammed the danceroom. The

musicians played on and on, and on and on the two men whirled. Davis was skilled at the trick, and on the

Yukon he had put many a strong man on his back. But after a few minutes it was clear that he, and not

For a while longer they spun around, and then Daylight suddenly stood still, released his partner, and stepped

back, reeling himself, and fluttering his hands aimlessly, as if to support himself against the air. But Davis, a

giddy smile of consternation on his face, gave sideways, turned in an attempt to recover balance, and pitched

headlong to the floor. Still reeling and staggering and clutching at the air with his hands, Daylight caught the

nearest girl and started on in a waltz. Again he had done the big thing. Weary from two thousand miles over

the ice and a run that day of seventy miles, he had whirled a fresh man down, and that man Ben Davis.

Daylight loved the high places, and though few high places there were in his narrow experience, he had made

a point of sitting in the highest he had ever glimpsed. The great world had never heard his name, but it was

known far and wide in the vast silent North, by whites and Indians and Eskimos, from Bering Sea to the

Passes, from the head reaches of remotest rivers to the tundra shore of Point Barrow. Desire for mastery was

strong in him, and it was all one whether wrestling with the elements themselves, with men, or with luck in a

gambling game. It was all a game, life and its affairs. And he was a gambler to the core. Risk and chance

were meat and drink. True, it was not altogether blind, for he applied wit and skill and strength; but behind it

all was the everlasting Luck, the thing that at times turned on its votaries and crushed the wise while it

blessed the foolsLuck, the thing all men sought and dreamed to conquer. And so he. Deep in his

lifeprocesses Life itself sang the siren song of its own majesty, ever awhisper and urgent, counseling him

that he could achieve more than other men, win out where they failed, ride to success where they perished. It

was the urge of Life healthy and strong, unaware of frailty and decay, drunken with sublime complacence,

And ever in vaguest whisperings and clearest trumpetcalls came the message that sometime, somewhere,

somehow, he would run Luck down, make himself the master of Luck, and tie it and brand it as his own.

When he played poker, the whisper was of four aces and royal flushes. When he prospected, it was of gold in

the grassroots, gold on bedrock, and gold all the way down. At the sharpest hazards of trail and river and

famine, the message was that other men might die, but that he would pull through triumphant. It was the old,

old lie of Life fooling itself, believing itselfimmortal and indestructible, bound to achieve over other lives

And so, reversing at times, Daylight waltzed off his dizziness and led the way to the bar. But a united protest

went up. His theory that the winner paid was no longer to be tolerated. It was contrary to custom and

common sense, and while it emphasized goodfellowship, nevertheless, in the name of goodfellowship it

must cease. The drinks were rightfully on Ben Davis, and Ben Davis must buy them. Furthermore, all drinks

and general treats that Daylight was guilty of ought to be paid by the house, for Daylight brought much

custom to it whenever he made a night. Bettles was the spokesman, and his argument, tersely and offensively

Daylight grinned, stepped aside to the roulettetable, and bought a stack of yellow chips. At the end of ten

minutes he weighed in at the scales, and two thousand dollars in golddust was poured into his own and an

extra sack. Luck, a mere flutter of luck, but it was his. Elation was added to elation. He was living, and the

And they surrendered. There was no withstanding Daylight when he vaulted on the back of life, and rode it

At one in the morning he saw Elijah Davis herding Henry Finn and Joe Hines, the lumberjack, toward the

He was a lean tobaccochewing New Englander, the one daring spirit in his family that had heard and

answered the call of the West shouting through the Mount Desert back oddlots. "Got to," Joe Hines added

"No excitement," Elijah explained. "We're just agoin' to play your hunch, an' tackle the Upper Country.

"We're tacklin' the Stewart," he went on. "Al Mayo told me he seen some likely lookin' bars first time he

come down the Stewart, and we're goin' to sample 'em while the river's froze. You listen, Daylight, an' mark

my words, the time's comin' when winter diggin's'll be all the go. There'll be men in them days that'll laugh at

At that time, winter mining was undreamed of on the Yukon. From the moss and grass the land was frozen to

bedrock, and frozen gravel, hard as granite, defied pick and shovel. In the summer the men stripped the

earth down as fast as the sun thawed it. Then was the time they did their mining. During the winter they

freighted their provisions, went moosehunting, got all ready for the summer's work, and then loafed the

bleak, dark months through in the big central camps such as Circle City and Forty Mile.

"Winter diggin's sure comin'," Daylight agreed. "Wait till that big strike is made up river. Then youall'll see

a new kind of mining. What's to prevent woodburning and sinking shafts and drifting along bedrock?

Won't need to timber. That frozen muck and gravel'll stand till hell is froze and its milltails is turned to

icecream. Why, they'll be working paystreaks a hundred feet deep in them days that's comin'. I'm sure

Elijah laughed, gathered his two partners up, and was making a second attempt to reach the door

The three men turned back suddenly upon him, in their faces surprise, delight, and incredulity.

"G'wan, you're foolin'," said Finn, the other lumberjack, a quiet, steady, Wisconsin man.

"There's my dawgs and sled," Daylight answered. "That'll make two teams and halve the loadsthough

"Now look here," Joe Hines blurted out, "none of your foolin, Daylight. We mean business. Will you come?"

"Then you'd best be gettin' to bed," Elijah advised. "We're mushin' out at six, and four hours' sleep is none so

"No you don't," he cried. "We all start at six. What time do youall want to be called? Five? All right, I'll

"You oughter have some sleep," Elijah counselled gravely. "You can't go on forever."

Daylight was tired, profoundly tired. Even his iron body acknowledged weariness. Every muscle was

clamoring for bed and rest, was appalled at continuance of exertion and at thought of the trail again. All this

physical protest welled up into his brain in a wave of revolt. But deeper down, scornful and defiant, was Life

itself, the essential fire of it, whispering that all Daylight's fellows were looking on, that now was the time to

pile deed upon deed, to flaunt his strength in the face of strength. It was merely Life, whispering its ancient

lies. And in league with it was whiskey, with all its consummate effrontery and vainglory.

"Mebbe youall think I ain't weaned yet?" Daylight demanded. "Why, I ain't had a drink, or a dance, or seen

And for the rest of the night he danced on in his stocking feet, and at five in the morning, rapping

thunderously on the door of his new partners' cabin, he could be heard singing the song that had given him

"Burning daylight, youall Stewart River hunchers! Burning daylight! Burning daylight! Burning daylight!"

This time the trail was easier. It was better packed, and they were not carrying mail against time. The day's

run was shorter, and likewise the hours on trail. On his mail run Daylight had played out three Indians; but

his present partners knew that they must not be played out when they arrived at the Stewart bars, so they set

the slower pace. And under this milder toil, where his companions nevertheless grew weary, Daylight

recuperated and rested up. At Forty Mile they laid over two days for the sake of the dogs, and at Sixty Mile

Daylight's team was left with the trader. Unlike Daylight, after the terrible run from Selkirk to Circle City,

they had been unable to recuperate on the back trail. So the four men pulled on from Sixty Mile with a fresh

The following night they camped in the cluster of islands at the mouth of the Stewart. Daylight talked town

sites, and, though the others laughed at him, he staked the whole maze of high, wooded islands.

"Just supposing the big strike does come on the Stewart," he argued. "Mebbe youall'll be in on it, and then

again mebbe youall won't. But I sure will. Youall'd better reconsider and go in with me on it."

"You're as bad as Harper and Joe Ladue," said Joe Hines. "They're always at that game. You know that big

flat jest below the Klondike and under Moosehide Mountain? Well, the recorder at Forty Mile was tellin' me

Elijah and Finn joined him in his laughter; but Daylight was gravely in earnest.

"There she is!" he cried. "The hunch is working! It's in the air, I tell youall! What'd theyall stake the big

"Laugh, youall, laugh! That's what's the trouble with youall. Youall think goldhunting is the only way to

make a stake. But let me tell youall that when the big strike sure does come, youall'll do a little

surfacescratchin' and muckraking, but danged little youall'll have to show for it. Youall laugh at

quicksilver in the riffles and think flour gold was manufactured by God Almighty for the express purpose of

fooling suckers and chechaquos. Nothing but coarse gold for youall, that's your way, not getting half of it

"But the men that land big will be them that stake the town sites, organize the tradin' companies, start the

Here the explosion of mirth drowned him out. Banks in Alaska! The idea of it was excruciating.

Again they were convulsed. Joe Hines rolled over on his sleepingrobe, holding his sides.

"And after them will come the big mining sharks that buy whole creeks where youall have been scratching

like a lot of picayune hens, and theyall will go to hydraulicking in summer and steamthawing in winter"

Steamthawing! That was the limit. Daylight was certainly exceeding himself in his consummate

funmaking. Steamthawingwhen even woodburning was an untried experiment, a dream in the air!

"Laugh, dang you, laugh! Why your eyes ain't open yet. Youall are a bunch of little mewing kittens. I tell

youall if that strike comes on Klondike, Harper and Ladue will be millionaires. And if it comes on Stewart,

youall watch the Elam Harnish town site boom. In them days, when youall come around makin' poor

mouths..." He heaved a sigh of resignation. "Well, I suppose I'll have to give youall a grubstake or soup, or

Daylight had vision. His scope had been rigidly limited, yet whatever he saw, he saw big. His mind was

orderly, his imagination practical, and he never dreamed idly. When he superimposed a feverish metropolis

on a waste of timbered, snowcovered flat, he predicated first the goldstrike that made the city possible, and

next he had an eye for steamboat landings, sawmill and warehouse locations, and all the needs of a

farnorthern mining city. But this, in turn, was the mere setting for something bigger, namely, the play of

temperament. Opportunities swarmed in the streets and buildings and human and economic relations of the

city of his dream. It was a larger table for gambling. The limit was the sky, with the Southland on one side

and the aurora borealis on the other. The play would be big, bigger than any Yukoner had ever imagined, and

In the meantime there was naught to show for it but the hunch. But it was coming. As he would stake his last

ounce on a good poker hand, so he staked his life and effort on the hunch that the future held in store a big

strike on the Upper River. So he and his three companions, with dogs, and sleds, and snowshoes, toiled up the

frozen breast of the Stewart, toiled on and on through the white wilderness where the unending stillness was

never broken by the voices of men, the stroke of an ax, or the distant crack of a rifle. They alone moved

through the vast and frozen quiet, little mites of earthmen, crawling their score of miles a day, melting the

ice that they might have water to drink, camping in the snow at night, their wolfdogs curled in frostrimed,

No signs of other men did they see, though once they passed a rude polingboat, cached on a platform by the

river bank. Whoever had cached it had never come back for it; and they wondered and mushed on. Another

time they chanced upon the site of an Indian village, but the Indians had disappeared; undoubtedly they were

on the higher reaches of the Stewart in pursuit of the mooseherds. Two hundred miles up from the Yukon,

they came upon what Elijah decided were the bars mentioned by Al Mayo. A permanent camp was made,

their outfit of food cached on a high platform to keep it from the dogs, and they started work on the bars,

It was a hard and simple life. Breakfast over, and they were at work by the first gray light; and when night

descended, they did their cooking and campchores, smoked and yarned for a while, then rolled up in their

sleepingrobes, and slept while the aurora borealis flamed overhead and the stars leaped and danced in the

great cold. Their fare was monotonous: sourdough bread, bacon, beans, and an occasional dish of rice

cooked along with a handful of prunes. Fresh meat they failed to obtain. There was an unwonted absence of

animal life. At rare intervals they chanced upon the trail of a snowshoe rabbit or an ermine; but in the main it

seemed that all life had fled the land. It was a condition not unknown to them, for in all their experience, at

one time or another, they had travelled one year through a region teeming with game, where, a year or two or

Gold they found on the bars, but not in paying quantities. Elijah, while on a hunt for moose fifty miles away,

had panned the surface gravel of a large creek and found good colors. They harnessed their dogs, and with

light outfits sledded to the place. Here, and possibly for the first time in the history of the Yukon,

woodburning, in sinking a shaft, was tried. It was Daylight's initiative. After clearing away the moss and

grass, a fire of dry spruce was built. Six hours of burning thawed eight inches of muck. Their picks drove full

depth into it, and, when they had shoveled out, another fire was started. They worked early and late, excited

over the success of the experiment. Six feet of frozen muck brought them to gravel, likewise frozen. Here

progress was slower. But they learned to handle their fires better, and were soon able to thaw five and six

inches at a burning. Flour gold was in this gravel, and after two feet it gave away again to muck. At seventeen

feet they struck a thin streak of gravel, and in it coarse gold, testpans running as high as six and eight dollars.

Unfortunately, this streak of gravel was not more than an inch thick. Beneath it was more muck, tangled with

the trunks of ancient trees and containing fossil bones of forgotten monsters. But gold they had

foundcoarse gold; and what more likely than that the big deposit would be found on bedrock? Down to

bedrock they would go, if it were forty feet away. They divided into two shifts, working day and night, on

It was at this time that they ran short of beans and that Elijah was despatched to the main camp to bring up

more grub. Elijah was one of the hardbitten oldtime travelers himself. The round trip was a hundred miles,

but he promised to be back on the third day, one day going light, two days returning heavy. Instead, he

arrived on the night of the second day. They had just gone to bed when they heard him coming.

"What in hell's the matter now?" Henry Finn demanded, as the empty sled came into the circle of firelight and

Joe Hines threw wood on the fire, and the three men, wrapped in their robes, huddled up close to the warmth.

Elijah's whiskered face was matted with ice, as were his eyebrows, so that, what of his fur garb, he looked

"You recollect that big spruce that held up the corner of the cache next to the river?" Elijah began.

The disaster was quickly told. The big tree, with all the seeming of hardihood, promising to stand for

centuries to come, had suffered from a hidden decay. In some way its rooted grip on the earth had weakened.

The added burden of the cache and the winter snow had been too much for it; the balance it had so long

maintained with the forces of its environment had been overthrown; it had toppled and crashed to the ground,

wrecking the cache and, in turn, overthrowing the balance with environment that the four men and eleven

dogs had been maintaining. Their supply of grub was gone. The wolverines had got into the wrecked cache,

"They plumb e't all the bacon and prunes and sugar and dogfood," Elijah reported, "and gosh darn my

buttons, if they didn't gnaw open the sacks and scatter the flour and beans and rice from Dan to Beersheba. I

Nobody spoke for a long minute. It was nothing less than a catastrophe, in the dead of an Arctic winter and in

a gameabandoned land, to lose their grub. They were not panicstricken, but they were busy looking the

situation squarely in the face and considering. Joe Hines was the first to speak.

"We can pan the snow for the beans and rice... though there wa'n't more'n eight or ten pounds of rice left."

"And somebody will have to take a team and pull for Sixty Mile," Daylight said next.

"But how are we going to feed the other team and three men till he gets back?" Hines demanded.

"Only one thing to it," was Elijah's contribution. "You'll have to take the other team, Joe, and pull up the

Stewart till you find them Indians. Then you come back with a load of meat. You'll get here long before

Henry can make it from Sixty Mile, and while you're gone there'll only be Daylight and me to feed, and we'll

"And in the morning weall'll pull for the cache and pan snow to find what grub we've got." Daylight lay

back, as he spoke, and rolled in his robe to sleep, then added: "Better turn in for an early start. Two of you

can take the dogs down. Elijah and me'll skin out on both sides and see if weall can scare up a moose on the

No time was lost. Hines and Finn, with the dogs, already on short rations, were two days in pulling down. At

noon of the third day Elijah arrived, reporting no moose sign. That night Daylight came in with a similar

report. As fast as they arrived, the men had started careful panning of the snow all around the cache. It was a

large task, for they found stray beans fully a hundred yards from the cache. One more day all the men toiled.

The result was pitiful, and the four showed their caliber in the division of the few pounds of food that had

been recovered. Little as it was, the lion's share was left with Daylight and Elijah. The men who pulled on

with the dogs, one up the Stewart and one down, would come more quickly to grub. The two who remained

would have to last out till the others returned. Furthermore, while the dogs, on several ounces each of beans a

day, would travel slowly, nevertheless, the men who travelled with them, on a pinch, would have the dogs

themselves to eat. But the men who remained, when the pinch came, would have no dogs. It was for this

reason that Daylight and Elijah took the more desperate chance. They could not do less, nor did they care to

do less. The days passed, and the winter began merging imperceptibly into the Northland spring that comes

like a thunderbolt of suddenness. It was the spring of 1896 that was preparing. Each day the sun rose farther

east of south, remained longer in the sky, and set farther to the west. March ended and April began, and

Daylight and Elijah, lean and hungry, wondered what had become of their two comrades. Granting every

delay, and throwing in generous margins for good measure, the time was long since passed when they should

have returned. Without doubt they had met with disaster. The party had considered the possibility of disaster

for one man, and that had been the principal reason for despatching the two in different directions. But that

In the meantime, hoping against hope, Daylight and Elija eked out a meagre existence. The thaw had not yet

begun, so they were able to gather the snow about the ruined cache and melt it in pots and pails and gold

pans. Allowed to stand for a while, when poured off, a thin deposit of slime was found on the bottoms of the

vessels. This was the flour, the infinitesimal trace of it scattered through thousands of cubic yards of snow.

Also, in this slime occurred at intervals a watersoaked tealeaf or coffeeground, and there were in it

fragments of earth and litter. But the farther they worked away from the site of the cache, the thinner became

Elijah was the older man, and he weakened first, so that he came to lie up most of the time in his furs. An

occasional tree squirrel kept them alive. The hunting fell upon Daylight, and it was hard work. With but

thirty rounds of ammunition, he dared not risk a miss; and, since his rifle was a 4590, he was compelled to

shoot the small creatures through the head. There were very few of them, and days went by without seeing

one. When he did see one, he took infinite precautions. He would stalk it for hours. A score of times, with

arms that shook from weakness, he would draw a sight on the animal and refrain from pulling the trigger. His

inhibition was a thing of iron. He was the master. Not til absolute certitude was his did he shoot. No matter

how sharp the pangs of hunger and desire for that palpitating morsel of chattering life, he refused to take the

slightest risk of a miss. He, born gambler, was gambling in the bigger way. His life was the stake, his cards

were the cartridges, and he played as only a big gambler could play, with infinite precaution, with infinite

consideration. Each shot meant a squirrel, and though days elapsed between shots, it never changed his

Of the squirrels, nothing was lost. Even the skins were boiled to make broth, the bones pounded into

fragments that could be chewed and swallowed. Daylight prospected through the snow, and found occasional

patches of mossberries. At the best, mossberries were composed practically of seeds and water, with a tough

rind of skin about them; but the berries he found were of the preceding year, dry and shrivelled, and the

nourishment they contained verged on the minus quality. Scarcely better was the bark of young saplings,

April drew toward its close, and spring smote the land. The days stretched out their length. Under the heat of

the sun, the snow began to melt, while from down under the snow arose the trickling of tiny streams. For

twentyfour hours the Chinook wind blew, and in that twentyfour hours the snow was diminished fully a

foot in depth. In the late afternoons the melting snow froze again, so that its surface became ice capable of

supporting a man's weight. Tiny white snowbirds appeared from the south, lingered a day, and resumed

their journey into the north. Once, high in the air, looking for open water and ahead of the season, a wedged

squadron of wild geese honked northwards. And down by the river bank a clump of dwarf willows burst into

bud. These young buds, stewed, seemed to posess an encouraging nutrition. Elijah took heart of hope, though

The sap was rising in the trees, and daily the trickle of unseen streamlets became louder as the frozen land

came back to life. But the river held in its bonds of frost. Winter had been long months in riveting them, and

not in a day were they to be broken, not even by the thunderbolt of spring. May came, and stray lastyear's

mosquitoes, fullgrown but harmless, crawled out of rock crevices and rotten logs. Crickets began to chirp,

and more geese and ducks flew overhead. And still the river held. By May tenth, the ice of the Stewart, with a

great rending and snapping, tore loose from the banks and rose three feet. But it did not go downstream. The

lower Yukon, up to where the Stewart flowed into it, must first break and move on. Until then the ice of the

Stewart could only rise higher and higher on the increasing flood beneath. When the Yukon would break was

problematical. Two thousand miles away it flowed into Bering Sea, and it was the ice conditions of Bering

Sea that would determine when the Yukon could rid itself of the millions of tons of ice that cluttered its

On the twelfth of May, carrying their sleepingrobes, a pail, an ax, and the precious rifle, the two men started

down the river on the ice. Their plan was to gain to the cached polingboat they had seen, so that at the first

open water they could launch it and drift with the stream to Sixty Mile. In their weak condition, without food,

the going was slow and difficult. Elijah developed a habit of falling down and being unable to rise. Daylight

gave of his own strength to lift him to his feet, whereupon the older man would stagger automatically on until

On the day they should have reached the boat, Elijah collapsed utterly. When Daylight raised him, he fell

again. Daylight essayed to walk with him, supporting him, but such was Daylight's own weakness that they

Dragging Elijah to the bank, a rude camp was made, and Daylight started out in search of squirrels. It was at

this time that he likewise developed the falling habit. In the evening he found his first squirrel, but darkness

came on without his getting a certain shot. With primitive patience he waited till next day, and then, within

The major portion he fed to Elijah, reserving for himself the tougher parts and the bones. But such is the

chemistry of life, that this small creature, this trifle of meat that moved, by being eaten, transmuted to the

meat of the men the same power to move. No longer did the squirrel run up spruce trees, leap from branch to

branch, or cling chattering to giddy perches. Instead, the same energy that had done these things flowed into

the wasted muscles and reeling wills of the men, making them movenay, moving themtill they tottered

the several intervening miles to the cached boat, underneath which they fell together and lay motionless a

Light as the task would have been for a strong man to lower the small boat to the ground, it took Daylight

hours. And many hours more, day by day, he dragged himself around it, lying on his side to calk the gaping

seams with moss. Yet, when this was done, the river still held. Its ice had risen many feet, but would not start

downstream. And one more task waited, the launching of the boat when the river ran water to receive it.

Vainly Daylight staggered and stumbled and fell and crept through the snow that was wet with thaw, or

across it when the night's frost still crusted it beyond the weight of a man, searching for one more squirrel,

striving to achieve one more transmutation of furry leap and scolding chatter into the lifts and tugs of a man's

body that would hoist the boat over the rim of shoreice and slide it down into the stream.

Not till the twentieth of May did the river break. The downstream movement began at five in the morning,

and already were the days so long that Daylight sat up and watched the icerun. Elijah was too far gone to be

interested in the spectacle. Though vaguely conscious, he lay without movement while the ice tore by, great

cakes of it caroming against the bank, uprooting trees, and gouging out earth by hundreds of tons.

All about them the land shook and reeled from the shock of these tremendous collisions. At the end of an

hour the run stopped. Somewhere below it was blocked by a jam. Then the river began to rise, lifting the ice

on its breast till it was higher than the bank. From behind ever more water bore down, and ever more millions

of tons of ice added their weight to the congestion. The pressures and stresses became terrific. Huge cakes of

ice were squeezed out till they popped into the air like melon seeds squeezed from between the thumb and

forefinger of a child, while all along the banks a wall of ice was forced up. When the jam broke, the noise of

grinding and smashing redoubled. For another hour the run continued. The river fell rapidly. But the wall of

The tail of the icerun passed, and for the first time in six months Daylight saw open water. He knew that the

ice had not yet passed out from the upper reaches of the Stewart, that it lay in packs and jams in those upper

reaches, and that it might break loose and come down in a second run any time; but the need was too

desperate for him to linger. Elijah was so far gone that he might pass at any moment. As for himself, he was

not sure that enough strength remained in his wasted muscles to launch the boat. It was all a gamble. If he

waited for the second icerun, Elijah would surely die, and most probably himself. If he succeeded in

launching the boat, if he kept ahead of the second icerun, if he did not get caught by some of the runs from

the upper Yukon; if luck favored in all these essential particulars, as well as in a score of minor ones, they

would reach Sixty Mile and be saved, ifand again the ifhe had strength enough to land the boat at Sixty

He set to work. The wall of ice was five feet above the ground on which the boat rested. First prospecting for

the best launchingplace, he found where a huge cake of ice shelved upward from the river that ran fifteen

feet below to the top of the wall. This was a score of feet away, and at the end of an hour he had managed to

get the boat that far. He was sick with nausea from his exertions, and at times it seemed that blindness smote

him, for he could not see, his eyes vexed with spots and points of light that were as excruciating as

diamonddust, his heart pounding up in his throat and suffocating him. Elijah betrayed no interest, did not

move nor open his eyes; and Daylight fought out his battle alone. At last, falling on his knees from the shock

of exertion, he got the boat poised on a secure balance on top the wall. Crawling on hands and knees, he

placed in the boat his rabbitskin robe, the rifle, and the pail. He did not bother with the ax. It meant an

additional crawl of twenty feet and back, and if the need for it should arise he well knew he would be past all

Elijah proved a bigger task than he had anticipated. A few inches at a time, resting in between, he dragged

him over the ground and up a broken rubble of ice to the side of the boat. But into the boat he could not get

him. Elijah's limp body was far more difficult to lift and handle than an equal weight of like dimensions but

rigid. Daylight failed to hoist him, for the body collapsed at the middle like a partempty sack of corn.

Getting into the boat, Daylight tried vainly to drag his comrade in after him. The best he could do was to get

Elijah's head and shoulders on top the gunwale. When he released his hold, to heave from farther down the

At each curse he struck him on the cheeks, the nose, the mouth, striving, by the shock of the hurt, to bring

back the sinking soul and farwandering will of the man. The eyes fluttered open.

"Now listen!" he shouted hoarsely. "When I get your head to the gunwale, hang on! Hear me? Hang on! Bite

The eyes fluttered down, but Daylight knew the message had been received. Again he got the helpless man's

One weak hand slipped off the gunwale, the fingers of the other hand relaxed, but Elijah obeyed, and his teeth

held on. When the lift came, his face ground forward, and the splintery wood tore and crushed the skin from

nose, lips, and chin; and, face downward, he slipped on and down to the bottom of the boat till his limp

middle collapsed across the gunwale and his legs hung down outside. But they were only his legs, and

Daylight shoved them in; after him. Breathing heavily, he turned Elijah over on his back, and covered him

The final task remainedthe launching of the boat. This, of necessity, was the severest of all, for he had

been compelled to load his comrade in aft of the balance. It meant a supreme effort at lifting. Daylight steeled

himself and began. Something must have snapped, for, though he was unaware of it, the next he knew he was

lying doubled on his stomach across the sharp stern of the boat. Evidently, and for the first time in his life, he

had fainted. Furthermore, it seemed to him that he was finished, that he had not one more movement left in

him, and that, strangest of all, he did not care. Visions came to him, clearcut and real, and concepts sharp as

steel cuttingedges. He, who all his days had looked on naked Life, had never seen so much of Life's

nakedness before. For the first time he experienced a doubt of his own glorious personality. For the moment

Life faltered and forgot to lie. After all, he was a little earthmaggot, just like all the other earthmaggots,

like the squirrel he had eaten, like the other men he had seen fail and die, like Joe Hines and Henry Finn, who

had already failed and were surely dead, like Elijah lying there uncaring, with his skinned face, in the bottom

of the boat. Daylight's position was such that from where he lay he could look up river to the bend, around

which, sooner or later, the next icerun would come. And as he looked he seemed to see back through the

past to a time when neither white man nor Indian was in the land, and ever he saw the same Stewart River,

winter upon winter, breasted with ice, and spring upon spring bursting that ice asunder and running free. And

he saw also into an illimitable future, when the last generations of men were gone from off the face of

Alaska, when he, too, would be gone, and he saw, ever remaining, that river, freezing and fresheting, and

Life was a liar and a cheat. It fooled all creatures. It had fooled him, Burning Daylight, one of its chiefest and

most joyous exponents. He was nothinga mere bunch of flesh and nerves and sensitiveness that crawled in

the muck for gold, that dreamed and aspired and gambled, and that passed and was gone. Only the dead

things remained, the things that were not flesh and nerves and sensitiveness, the sand and muck and gravel,

the stretching flats, the mountains, the river itself, freezing and breaking, year by year, down all the years.

When all was said and done, it was a scurvy game. The dice were loaded. Those that died did not win, and all

died. Who won? Not even Life, the stoolpigeon, the archcapper for the gameLife, the ever flourishing

He drifted back to the immediate present for a moment and noted that the river still ran wide open, and that a

moosebird, perched on the bow of the boat, was surveying him impudently. Then he drifted dreamily back

There was no escaping the end of the game. He was doomed surely to be out of it all. And what of it? He

Conventional religion had passed Daylight by. He had lived a sort of religion in his square dealing and right

playing with other men, and he had not indulged in vain metaphysics about future life. Death ended all. He

had always believed that, and been unafraid. And at this moment, the boat fifteen feet above the water and

immovable, himself fainting with weakness and without a particle of strength left in him, he still believed that

death ended all, and he was still unafraid. His views were too simply and solidly based to be overthrown by

He had seen men and animals die, and into the field of his vision, by scores, came such deaths. He saw them

What of it? They were dead, and dead long since. They weren't bothering about it. They weren't lying on their

bellies across a boat and waiting to die. Death was easyeasier than he had ever imagined; and, now that it

A new vision came to him. He saw the feverish city of his dreamthe gold metropolis of the North, perched

above the Yukon on a high earthbank and farspreading across the flat. He saw the river steamers tied to the

bank and lined against it three deep; he saw the sawmills working and the long dogteams, with double sleds

behind, freighting supplies to the diggings. And he saw, further, the gamblinghouses, banks,

stockexchanges, and all the gear and chips and markers, the chances and opportunities, of a vastly bigger

gambling game than any he had ever seen. It was sure hell, he thought, with the hunch aworking and that

big strike coming, to be out of it all. Life thrilled and stirred at the thought and once more began uttering his

Daylight rolled over and off the boat, leaning against it as he sat on the ice. He wanted to be in on that strike.

And why shouldn't he? Somewhere in all those wasted muscles of his was enough strength, if he could gather

it all at once, to upend the boat and launch it. Quite irrelevantly the idea suggested itself of buying a share in

the Klondike town site from Harper and Joe Ladue. They would surely sell a third interest cheap. Then, if the

strike came on the Stewart, he would be well in on it with the Elam Harnish town site; if on the Klondike, he

In the meantime, he would gather strength. He stretched out on the ice full length, face downward, and for

half an hour he lay and rested. Then he arose, shook the flashing blindness from his eyes, and took hold of the

boat. He knew his condition accurately. If the first effort failed, the following efforts were doomed to fail. He

must pull all his rallied strength into the one effort, and so thoroughly must he put all of it in that there would

He lifted, and he lifted with the soul of him as well as with the body, consuming himself, body and spirit, in

the effort. The boat rose. He thought he was going to faint, but he continued to lift. He felt the boat give, as it

started on its downward slide. With the last shred of his strength he precipitated himself into it, landing in a

sick heap on Elijah's legs. He was beyond attempting to rise, and as he lay he heard and felt the boat take the

water. By watching the treetops he knew it was whirling. A smashing shock and flying fragments of ice told

him that it had struck the bank. A dozen times it whirled and struck, and then it floated easily and free.

Daylight came to, and decided he had been asleep. The sun denoted that several hours had passed. It was

early afternoon. He dragged himself into the stern and sat up. The boat was in the middle of the stream. The

wooded banks, with their baselines of flashing ice, were slipping by. Near him floated a huge, uprooted

pine. A freak of the current brought the boat against it. Crawling forward, he fastened the painter to a root.

The tree, deeper in the water, was travelling faster, and the painter tautened as the boat took the tow. Then,

with a last giddy look around, wherein he saw the banks tilting and swaying and the sun swinging in

pendulumsweep across the sky, Daylight wrapped himself in his rabbitskin robe, lay down in the bottom,

When he awoke, it was dark night. He was lying on his back, and he could see the stars shining. A subdued

murmur of swollen waters could be heard. A sharp jerk informed him that the boat, swerving slack into the

painter, had been straightened out by the swiftermoving pine tree. A piece of stray driftice thumped against

the boat and grated along its side. Well, the following jam hadn't caught him yet, was his thought, as he

It was bright day when next he opened his eyes. The sun showed it to be midday. A glance around at the

faraway banks, and he knew that he was on the mighty Yukon. Sixty Mile could not be far away. He was

abominably weak. His movements were slow, fumbling, and inaccurate, accompanied by panting and

headswimming, as he dragged himself into a sittingup position in the stern, his rifle beside him. He looked

a long time at Elijah, but could not see whether he breathed or not, and he was too immeasurably far away to

He fell to dreaming and meditating again, dreams and thoughts being often broken by sketches of blankness,

wherein he neither slept, nor was unconscious, nor was aware of anything. It seemed to him more like cogs

slipping in his brain. And in this intermittent way he reviewed the situation. He was still alive, and most

likely would be saved, but how came it that he was not lying dead across the boat on top the icerim? Then

he recollected the great final effort he had made. But why had he made it? he asked himself. It had not been

fear of death. He had not been afraid, that was sure. Then he remembered the hunch and the big strike he

believed was coming, and he knew that the spur had been his desire to sit in for a hand at that big game. And

again why? What if he made his million? He would die, just the same as those that never won more than

grubstakes. Then again why? But the blank stretches in his thinking process began to come more frequently,

He roused with a start. Something had whispered in him that he must awake. Abruptly he saw Sixty Mile, not

The current had brought him to the very door. But the same current was now sweeping him past and on into

the downriver wilderness. No one was in sight. The place might have been deserted, save for the smoke he

saw rising from the kitchen chimney. He tried to call, but found he had no voice left. An unearthly guttural

hiss alternately rattled and wheezed in his throat. He fumbled for the rifle, got it to his shoulder, and pulled

the trigger. The recoil of the discharge tore through his frame, racking it with a thousand agonies. The rifle

had fallen across his knees, and an attempt to lift it to his shoulder failed. He knew he must be quick, and felt

that he was fainting, so he pulled the trigger of the gun where it lay. This time it kicked off and overboard.

But just before darkness rushed over him, he saw the kitchen door open, and a woman look out of the big log

Ten days later, Harper and Joe Ladue arrived at Sixty Mile, and Daylight, still a trifle weak, but strong

enough to obey the hunch that had come to him, traded a third interest in his Stewart town site for a third

They had faith in the Upper Country, and Harper left downstream, with a raftload of supplies, to start a

"Why don't you tackle Indian River, Daylight?" Harper advised, at parting. "There's whole slathers of creeks

and draws draining in up there, and somewhere gold just crying to be found. That's my hunch. There's a big

"And the place is swarming with moose," Joe Ladue added. "Bob Henderson's up there somewhere, been

there three years now, swearing something big is going to happen, living off'n straight moose and prospecting

Daylight decided to go Indian River a flutter, as he expressed it; but Elijah could not be persuaded into

accompanying him. Elijah's soul had been seared by famine, and he was obsessed by fear of repeating the

"I jest can't bear to separate from grub," he explained. "I know it's downright foolishness, but I jest can't help

it. It's all I can do to tear myself away from the table when I know I'm full to bustin' and ain't got storage for

Daylight lingered a few days longer, gathering strength and arranging his meagre outfit. He planned to go in

light, carrying a pack of seventyfive pounds and making his five dogs pack as well, Indian fashion, loading

them with thirty pounds each. Depending on the report of Ladue, he intended to follow Bob Henderson's

example and live practically on straight meat. When Jack Kearns' scow, laden with the sawmill from Lake

Linderman, tied up at Sixty Mile, Daylight bundled his outfit and dogs on board, turned his townsite

application over to Elijah to be filed, and the same day was landed at the mouth of Indian River.

Forty miles up the river, at what had been described to him as Quartz Creek, he came upon signs of Bob

Henderson's work, and also at Australia Creek, thirty miles farther on. The weeks came and went, but

Daylight never encountered the other man. However, he found moose plentiful, and he and his dogs

prospered on the meat diet. He found "pay" that was no more than "wages" on a dozen surface bars, and from

the generous spread of flour gold in the muck and gravel of a score of creeks, he was more confident than

ever that coarse gold in quantity was waiting to be unearthed. Often he turned his eyes to the northward ridge

of hills, and pondered if the gold came from them. In the end, he ascended Dominion Creek to its head,

crossed the divide, and came down on the tributary to the Klondike that was later to be called Hunker Creek.

While on the divide, had he kept the big dome on his right, he would have come down on the Gold Bottom,

so named by Bob Henderson, whom he would have found at work on it, taking out the first paygold ever

panned on the Klondike. Instead, Daylight continued down Hunker to the Klondike, and on to the summer

Here for a day he camped with Carmack, a squawman, and his Indian brotherinlaw, Skookum Jim,

bought a boat, and, with his dogs on board, drifted down the Yukon to Forty Mile. August was drawing to a

close, the days were growing shorter, and winter was coming on. Still with unbounded faith in his hunch that

a strike was coming in the Upper Country, his plan was to get together a party of four or five, and, if that was

impossible, at least a partner, and to pole back up the river before the freezeup to do winter prospecting. But

the men of Forty Mile were without faith. The diggings to the westward were good enough for them.

Then it was that Carmack, his brotherinlaw, Skookum Jim, and Cultus Charlie, another Indian, arrived in a

canoe at Forty Mile, went straight to the gold commissioner, and recorded three claims and a discovery claim

on Bonanza Creek. After that, in the Sourdough Saloon, that night, they exhibited coarse gold to the sceptical

crowd. Men grinned and shook their heads. They had seen the motions of a gold strike gone through before.

This was too patently a scheme of Harper's and Joe Ladue's, trying to entice prospecting in the vicinity of

their town site and trading post. And who was Carmack? A squawman. And who ever heard of a

squawman striking anything? And what was Bonanza Creek? Merely a moose pasture, entering the

Klondike just above its mouth, and known to oldtimers as Rabbit Creek. Now if Daylight or Bob Henderson

had recorded claims and shown coarse gold, they'd known there was something in it. But Carmack, the

squawman! And Skookum Jim! And Cultus Charlie! No, no; that was asking too much.

Daylight, too, was sceptical, and this despite his faith in the Upper Country. Had he not, only a few days

before, seen Carmack loafing with his Indians and with never a thought of prospecting?

But at eleven that night, sitting on the edge of his bunk and unlacing his moccasins, a thought came to him.

He put on his coat and hat and went back to the Sourdough. Carmack was still there, flashing his coarse gold

in the eyes of an unbelieving generation. Daylight ranged alongside of him and emptied Carmack's sack into

a blower. This he studied for a long time. Then, from his own sack, into another blower, he emptied several

ounces of Circle City and Forty Mile gold. Again, for a long time, he studied and compared. Finally, he

"Boys, I want to tell youall something," he said. "She's sure comethe upriver strike. And I tell youall,

clear and forcible, this is it. There ain't never been gold like that in a blower in this country before. It's new

gold. It's got more silver in it. Youall can see it by the color. Carmack's sure made a strike. Whoall's got

"I sure have," was the retort, "and a third interest in Harper and Ladue's. And I can see my corner lots selling

"That's all right, Daylight," one Curly Parson interposed soothingly. "You've got a reputation, and we know

you're dead sure on the square. But you're as likely as any to be mistook on a flimflam game, such as these

loafers is putting up. I ask you straight: When did Carmack do this here prospecting? You said yourself he

was lying in camp, fishing salmon along with his Siwash relations, and that was only the other day."

"And Daylight told the truth," Carmack interrupted excitedly. "And I'm telling the truth, the gospel truth. I

wasn't prospecting. Hadn't no idea of it. But when Daylight pulls out, the very same day, who drifts in, down

river, on a raftload of supplies, but Bob Henderson. He'd come out to Sixty Mile, planning to go back up

Indian River and portage the grub across the divide between Quartz Creek and Gold Bottom"

"Over beyond Bonanza that was Rabbit Creek," the squawman went on. "It's a draw of a big creek that runs

into the Klondike. That's the way I went up, but I come back by crossing the divide, keeping along the crest

several miles, and dropping down into Bonanza. 'Come along with me, Carmack, and get staked,' says Bob

Henderson to me. 'I've hit it this time, on Gold Bottom. I've took out fortyfive ounces already.' And I went

along, Skookum Jim and Cultus Charlie, too. And we all staked on Gold Bottom. I come back by Bonanza on

the chance of finding a moose. Along down Bonanza we stopped and cooked grub. I went to sleep, and what

does Skookum Jim do but try his hand at prospecting. He'd been watching Henderson, you see. He goes right

slap up to the foot of a birch tree, first pan, fills it with dirt, and washes out more'n a dollar coarse gold. Then

he wakes me up, and I goes at it. I got two and a half the first lick. Then I named the creek 'Bonanza,' staked

He looked about him anxiously for signs of belief, but found himself in a circle of incredulous facesall

"How much is Harper and Ladue givin' you for manufacturing a stampede?" some one asked.

"They don't know nothing about it," Carmack answered. "I tell you it's the God Almighty's truth. I washed out

"And there's the gold," Daylight said. "I tell youall boys they ain't never been gold like that in the blower

"A trifle darker," Curly Parson said. "Most likely Carmack's been carrying a couple of silver dollars along in

the same sack. And what's more, if there's anything in it, why ain't Bob Henderson smoking along to record?"

"Whoall'll go pardners with me and pull out in a polingboat tomorrow for this here Bonanza?" Daylight

"Then whoall'll take a job from me, cash wages in advance, to pole up a thousand pounds of grub?"

Curly Parsons and another, Pat Monahan, accepted, and, with his customary speed, Daylight paid them their

wages in advance and arranged the purchase of the supplies, though he emptied his sack in doing so. He was

"I sure have," he answered. "Flour's sure going to be worth what a man will pay for it this winter up on the

On the instant a score of the men who had declined to accompany him on the wildgoose chase were

"How much flour do you want?" asked the Alaska Commercial Company's storekeeper.

The proffered goldsacks were not withdrawn, though their owners were guilty of an outrageous burst of

"Son," Daylight made reply, "youall ain't been in this country long enough to know all its curves. I'm going

He borrowed money right and left, engaging and paying six other men to bring up the flour in half as many

"I'll tell youall in simple A, B, C and one, two, three." Daylight held up one finger and began checking off.

"Hunch number one: a big strike coming in Upper Country. Hunch number two: Carmack's made it. Hunch

number three: ain't no hunch at all. It's a cinch. If one and two is right, then flour just has to go skyhigh. If

I'm riding hunches one and two, I just got to ride this cinch, which is number three. If I'm right, flour'll

balance gold on the scales this winter. I tell youall boys, when youall got a hunch, play it for all it's worth.

What's luck good for, if youall ain't to ride it? And when youall ride it, ride like hell. I've been years in this

country, just waiting for the right hunch to come along. And here she is. Well, I'm going to play her, that's all.

Still men were without faith in the strike. When Daylight, with his heavy outfit of flour, arrived at the mouth

of the Klondike, he found the big flat as desolate and tenantless as ever. Down close by the river, Chief Isaac

and his Indians were camped beside the frames on which they were drying salmon. Several oldtimers were

also in camp there. Having finished their summer work on Ten Mile Creek, they had come down the Yukon,

bound for Circle City. But at Sixty Mile they had learned of the strike, and stopped off to look over the

ground. They had just returned to their boat when Daylight landed his flour, and their report was pessimistic.

"Damned moosepasture," quoth one, Long Jim Harney, pausing to blow into his tin mug of tea. "Don't you

have nothin' to do with it, Daylight. It's a blamed rotten sell. They're just going through the motions of a

strike. Harper and Ladue's behind it, and Carmack's the stoolpigeon. Whoever heard of mining a

moosepasture half a mile between rimrock and God alone knows how far to bedrock!"

"Pan hell!" was the indignant answer. "Think I was born yesterday! Only a chechaquo'd fool around that

pasture long enough to fill a pan of dirt. You don't catch me at any such foolishness. One look was enough

for me. We're pulling on in the morning for Circle City. I ain't never had faith in this Upper Country.

Headreaches of the Tanana is good enough for me from now on, and mark my words, when the big strike

comes, she'll come down river. Johnny, here, staked a couple of miles below Discovery, but he don't know no

"I just did it for fun," he explained. "I'd give my chance in the creek for a pound of Star plug."

"I'll go you," Daylight said promptly. "But don't youall come squealing if I take twenty or thirty thousand

"Then you do the same as Johnny. Get the fees from Tim Logan. He's tending bar in the Sourdough, and he'll

lend it to me. Then fill in your own name, transfer to me, and turn the papers over to Tim."

And for three pounds of Star plug chewing tobacco, Daylight bought outright three fivehundredfoot claims

on Bonanza. He could still stake another claim in his own name, the others being merely transfers.

"Must say you're almighty brash with your chewin' tobacco," Long Jim grinned. "Got a factory somewheres?"

"Nope, but I got a hunch," was the retort, "and I tell youall it's cheaper than dirt to ride her at the rate of

But an hour later, at his own camp, Joe Ladue strode in, fresh from Bonanza Creek. At first, noncommittal

over Carmack's strike, then, later, dubious, he finally offered Daylight a hundred dollars for his share in the

So saying, Ladue pulled out his goldsack. Daylight hefted it absentmindedly, and, still absentmindedly,

untied the strings and ran some of the golddust out on his palm. It showed darker than any dust he had ever

seen, with the exception of Carmack's. He ran the gold back tied the mouth of the sack, and returned it to

Daylight was all innocence as he asked the question, and Ladue received the question as stolidly as an Indian.

Yet for a swift instant they looked into each other's eyes, and in that instant an intangible something seemed

to flash out from all the body and spirit of Joe Ladue. And it seemed to Daylight that he had caught this flash,

"Youall know the creek better'n me," Daylight went on. "And if my share in the town site's worth a hundred

to youall with what youall know, it's worth a hundred to me whether I know it or not."

"Still the same reasoning. No matter what I don't know, it's worth to me whatever youall are willing to pay

Then it was that Joe Ladue shamelessly gave over. He led Daylight away from the camp and men and told

"She's sure there," he said in conclusion. "I didn't sluice it, or cradle it. I panned it, all in that sack, yesterday,

on the rimrock. I tell you, you can shake it out of the grassroots. And what's on bedrock down in the

bottom of the creek they ain't no way of tellin'. But she's big, I tell you, big. Keep it quiet, and locate all you

can. It's in spots, but I wouldn't be none surprised if some of them claims yielded as high as fifty thousand.

A month passed by, and Bonanza Creek remained quiet. A sprinkling of men had staked; but most of them,

after staking, had gone on down to Forty Mile and Circle City. The few that possessed sufficient faith to

remain were busy building log cabins against the coming of winter. Carmack and his Indian relatives were

occupied in building a sluice box and getting a head of water. The work was slow, for they had to saw their

lumber by hand from the standing forest. But farther down Bonanza were four men who had drifted in from

up river, Dan McGilvary, Dave McKay, Dave Edwards, and Harry Waugh. They were a quiet party, neither

asking nor giving confidences, and they herded by themselves. But Daylight, who had panned the spotted rim

of Carmack's claim and shaken coarse gold from the grassroots, and who had panned the rim at a hundred

other places up and down the length of the creek and found nothing, was curious to know what lay on

bedrock. He had noted the four quiet men sinking a shaft close by the stream, and he had heard their

whipsaw going as they made lumber for the sluice boxes. He did not wait for an invitation, but he was

present the first day they sluiced. And at the end of five hours' shovelling for one man, he saw them take out

It was coarse gold, running from pinheads to a twelvedollar nugget, and it had come from off bedrock. The

first fall snow was flying that day, and the Arctic winter was closing down; but Daylight had no eyes for the

bleakgray sadness of the dying, shortlived summer. He saw his vision coming true, and on the big flat was

upreared anew his golden city of the snows. Gold had been found on bedrock. That was the big thing.

Carmack's strike was assured. Daylight staked a claim in his own name adjoining the three he had purchased

with his plug tobacco. This gave him a block of property two thousand feet long and extending in width from

Returning that night to his camp at the mouth of Klondike, he found in it Kama, the Indian he had left at

Dyea. Kama was travelling by canoe, bringing in the last mail of the year. In his possession was some two

hundred dollars in golddust, which Daylight immediately borrowed. In return, he arranged to stake a claim

for him, which he was to record when he passed through Forty Mile. When Kama departed next morning, he

carried a number of letters for Daylight, addressed to all the oldtimers down river, in which they were urged

Also Kama carried letters of similar import, given him by the other men on Bonanza.

"It will sure be the goshdangdest stampede that ever was," Daylight chuckled, as he tried to vision the

excited populations of Forty Mile and Circle City tumbling into polingboats and racing the hundreds of

miles up the Yukon; for he knew that his word would be unquestioningly accepted.

With the arrival of the first stampeders, Bonanza Creek woke up, and thereupon began a longdistance race

between unveracity and truth, wherein, lie no matter how fast, men were continually overtaken and passed by

truth. When men who doubted Carmack's report of two and a half to the pan, themselves panned two and a

half, they lied and said that they were getting an ounce. And long ere the lie was fairly on its way, they were

getting not one ounce but five ounces. This they claimed was ten ounces; but when they filled a pan of dirt to

prove the lie, they washed out twelve ounces. And so it went. They continued valiantly to lie, but the truth

One day in December Daylight filled a pan from bed rock on his own claim and carried it into his cabin. Here

a fire burned and enabled him to keep water unfrozen in a canvas tank. He squatted over the tank and began

to wash. Earth and gravel seemed to fill the pan. As he imparted to it a circular movement, the lighter, coarser

particles washed out over the edge. At times he combed the surface with his fingers, raking out handfuls of

gravel. The contents of the pan diminished. As it drew near to the bottom, for the purpose of fleeting and

tentative examination, he gave the pan a sudden sloshing movement, emptying it of water. And the whole

bottom showed as if covered with butter. Thus the yellow gold flashed up as the muddy water was flirted

away. It was goldgolddust, coarse gold, nuggets, large nuggets. He was all alone. He set the pan down for

a moment and thought long thoughts. Then he finished the washing, and weighed the result in his scales. At

the rate of sixteen dollars to the ounce, the pan had contained seven hundred and odd dollars. It was beyond

anything that even he had dreamed. His fondest anticipation's had gone no farther than twenty or thirty

thousand dollars to a claim; but here were claims worth half a million each at the least, even if they were

He did not go back to work in the shaft that day, nor the next, nor the next. Instead, capped and mittened, a

light stampeding outfit, including his rabbit skin robe, strapped on his back, he was out and away on a

manydays' tramp over creeks and divides, inspecting the whole neighboring territory. On each creek he was

entitled to locate one claim, but he was chary in thus surrendering up his chances. On Hunker Creek only did

he stake a claim. Bonanza Creek he found staked from mouth to source, while every little draw and pup and

gulch that drained into it was likewise staked. Little faith was had in these sidestreams. They had been

staked by the hundreds of men who had failed to get in on Bonanza. The most popular of these creeks was

Adams. The one least fancied was Eldorado, which flowed into Bonanza, just above Karmack's Discovery

claim. Even Daylight disliked the looks of Eldorado; but, still riding his hunch, he bought a half share in one

claim on it for half a sack of flour. A month later he paid eight hundred dollars for the adjoining claim. Three

months later, enlarging this block of property, he paid forty thousand for a third claim; and, though it was

concealed in the future, he was destined, not long after, to pay one hundred and fifty thousand for a fourth

In the meantime, and from the day he washed seven hundred dollars from a single pan and squatted over it

and thought a long thought, he never again touched hand to pick and shovel. As he said to Joe Ladue the

"Joe, I ain't never going to work hard again. Here's where I begin to use my brains. I'm going to farm gold.

Gold will grow gold if youall have the savvee and can get hold of some for seed. When I seen them seven

And Daylight, with a wave of his hand, definitely indicated the whole landscape and the creeks that lay

"There she is," he said, "and youall just watch my smoke. There's millions here for the man who can see

them. And I seen all them millions this afternoon when them seven hundred dollars peeped up at me from the

bottom of the pan and chirruped, 'Well, if here ain't Burning Daylight come at last.'"

The hero of the Yukon in the younger days before the Carmack strike, Burning Daylight now became the

hero of the strike. The story of his hunch and how he rode it was told up and down the land. Certainly he had

ridden it far and away beyond the boldest, for no five of the luckiest held the value in claims that he held.

And, furthermore, he was still riding the hunch, and with no diminution of daring. The wise ones shook their

heads and prophesied that he would lose every ounce he had won. He was speculating, they contended, as if

the whole country was made of gold, and no man could win who played a placer strike in that fashion.

On the other hand, his holdings were reckoned as worth millions, and there were men so sanguine that they

held the man a fool who coppered[6] any bet Daylight laid. Behind his magnificent freehandedness and

careless disregard for money were hard, practical judgment, imagination and vision, and the daring of the big

gambler. He foresaw what with his own eyes he had never seen, and he played to win much or lose all.

"There's too much gold here in Bonanza to be just a pocket," he argued. "It's sure come from a motherlode

somewhere, and other creeks will show up. Youall keep your eyes on Indian River. The creeks that drain

that side the Klondike watershed are just as likely to have gold as the creeks that drain this side."

And he backed this opinion to the extent of grubstaking half a dozen parties of prospectors across the big

divide into the Indian River region. Other men, themselves failing to stake on lucky creeks, he put to work on

his Bonanza claims. And he paid them wellsixteen dollars a day for an eighthour shift, and he ran three

shifts. He had grub to start them on, and when, on the last water, the Bella arrived loaded with provisions, he

traded a warehouse site to Jack Kearns for a supply of grub that lasted all his men through the winter of 1896.

And that winter, when famine pinched, and flour sold for two dollars a pound, he kept three shifts of men at

work on all four of the Bonanza claims. Other mineowners paid fifteen dollars a day to their men; but he

had been the first to put men to work, and from the first he paid them a full ounce a day. One result was that

One of his wildest plays took place in the early winter after the freezeup. Hundreds of stampeders, after

staking on other creeks than Bonanza, had gone on disgruntled down river to Forty Mile and Circle City.

Daylight mortgaged one of his Bonanza dumps with the Alaska Commercial Company, and tucked a letter of

credit into his pouch. Then he harnessed his dogs and went down on the ice at a pace that only he could

travel. One Indian down, another Indian back, and four teams of dogs was his record. And at Forty Mile and

Circle City he bought claims by the score. Many of these were to prove utterly worthless, but some few of

them were to show up more astoundingly than any on Bonanza. He bought right and left, paying as low as

fifty dollars and as high as five thousand. This highest one he bought in the Tivoli Saloon. It was an upper

claim on Eldorado, and when he agreed to the price, Jacob Wilkins, an oldtimer just returned from a look at

"Daylight, I've known you seven year, and you've always seemed sensible till now. And now you're just

letting them rob you right and left. That's what it isrobbery. Five thousand for a claim on that damned

moosepasture is bunco. I just can't stay in the room and see you buncoed that way."

"I tell youall," Daylight answered, "Wilkins, Carmack's strike's so big that weall can't see it all. It's a

lottery. Every claim I buy is a ticket. And there's sure going to be some capital prizes."

"Now supposing, Wilkins," Daylight went on, "supposing youall knew it was going to rain soup. What'd

youall do? Buy spoons, of course. Well, I'm sure buying spoons. She's going to rain soup up there on the

But Wilkins here slammed the door behind him, and Daylight broke off to finish the purchase of the claim.

Back in Dawson, though he remained true to his word and never touched hand to pick and shovel, he worked

as hard as ever in his life. He had a thousand irons in the fire, and they kept him busy. Representation work

was expensive, and he was compelled to travel often over the various creeks in order to decide which claims

should lapse and which should be retained. A quartz miner himself in his early youth, before coming to

Alaska, he dreamed of finding the motherlode. A placer camp he knew was ephemeral, while a quartz camp

abided, and he kept a score of men in the quest for months. The motherlode was never found, and, years

afterward, he estimated that the search for it had cost him fifty thousand dollars.

But he was playing big. Heavy as were his expenses, he won more heavily. He took lays, bought half shares,

shared with the men he grubstaked, and made personal locations. Day and night his dogs were ready, and he

owned the fastest teams; so that when a stampede to a new discovery was on, it was Burning Daylight to the

fore through the longest, coldest nights till he blazed his stakes next to Discovery. In one way or another (to

say nothing of the many worthless creeks) he came into possession of properties on the good creeks, such as

Sulphur, Dominion, Excelsis, Siwash, Cristo, Alhambra, and Doolittle. The thousands he poured out flowed

back in tens of thousands. Forty Mile men told the story of his two tons of flour, and made calculations of

what it had returned him that ranged from half a million to a million. One thing was known beyond all doubt,

namely, that the half share in the first Eldorado claim, bought by him for a half sack of flour, was worth five

hundred thousand. On the other hand, it was told that when Freda, the dancer, arrived from over the passes in

a Peterborough canoe in the midst of a drive of mushice on the Yukon, and when she offered a thousand

dollars for ten sacks and could find no sellers, he sent the flour to her as a present without ever seeing her. In

the same way ten sacks were sent to the lone Catholic priest who was starting the first hospital.

His generosity was lavish. Others called it insane. At a time when, riding his hunch, he was getting half a

million for half a sack of flour, it was nothing less than insanity to give twenty whole sacks to a dancinggirl

and a priest. But it was his way. Money was only a marker. It was the game that counted with him. The

possession of millions made little change in him, except that he played the game more passionately.

Temperate as he had always been, save on rare occasions, now that he had the wherewithal for unlimited

drinks and had daily access to them, he drank even less. The most radical change lay in that, except when on

trail, he no longer did his own cooking. A brokendown miner lived in his log cabin with him and now

cooked for him. But it was the same food: bacon, beans, flour, prunes, dried fruits, and rice. He still dressed

as formerly: overalls, German socks, moccasins, flannel shirt, fur cap, and blanket coat. He did not take up

with cigars, which cost, the cheapest, from half a dollar to a dollar each. The same Bull Durham and

brownpaper cigarette, handrolled, contented him. It was true that he kept more dogs, and paid enormous

prices for them. They were not a luxury, but a matter of business. He needed speed in his travelling and

stampeding. And by the same token, he hired a cook. He was too busy to cook for himself, that was all. It was

poor business, playing for millions, to spend time building fires and boiling water.

Dawson grew rapidly that winter of 1896. Money poured in on Daylight from the sale of town lots. He

promptly invested it where it would gather more. In fact, he played the dangerous game of pyramiding, and

no more perilous pyramiding than in a placer camp could be imagined. But he played with his eyes wide

"Youall just wait till the news of this strike reaches the Outside," he told his oldtimer cronies in the

Moosehorn Saloon. "The news won't get out till next spring. Then there's going to be three rushes. A summer

rush of men coming in light; a fall rush of men with outfits; and a spring rush, the next year after that, of fifty

thousand. Youall won't be able to see the landscape for chechaquos. Well, there's the summer and fall rush

"Nothing," he answered. "I've sure already done it. I've got a dozen gangs strung out up the Yukon getting out

logs. Youall'll see their rafts coming down after the river breaks. Cabins! They sure will be worth what a

man can pay for them next fall. Lumber! It will sure go to top notch. I've got two sawmills freighting in over

the passes. They'll come down as soon as the lakes open up. And if youall are thinking of needing lumber,

I'll make youall contracts right nowthree hundred dollars a thousand, undressed."

Corner lots in desirable locations sold that winter for from ten to thirty thousand dollars. Daylight sent word

out over the trails and passes for the newcomers to bring down lografts, and, as a result, the summer of 1897

saw his sawmills working day and night, on three shifts, and still he had logs left over with which to build

cabins. These cabins, land included, sold at from one to several thousand dollars. Twostory log buildings, in

the business part of town, brought him from forty to fifty thousand dollars apiece. These fresh accretions of

capital were immediately invested in other ventures. He turned gold over and over, until everything that he

But that first wild winter of Carmack's strike taught Daylight many things. Despite the prodigality of his

nature, he had poise. He watched the lavish waste of the mushroom millionaires, and failed quite to

understand it. According to his nature and outlook, it was all very well to toss an ante away in a night's frolic.

That was what he had done the night of the pokergame in Circle City when he lost fifty thousandall that

he possessed. But he had looked on that fifty thousand as a mere ante. When it came to millions, it was

different. Such a fortune was a stake, and was not to be sown on barroom floors, literally sown, flung

broadcast out of the moosehide sacks by drunken millionaires who had lost all sense of proportion. There was

McMann, who ran up a single barroom bill of thirtyeight thousand dollars; and Jimmie the Rough, who

spent one hundred thousand a month for four months in riotous living, and then fell down drunk in the snow

one March night and was frozen to death; and Swiftwater Bill, who, after spending three valuable claims in

an extravagance of debauchery, borrowed three thousand dollars with which to leave the country, and who,

out of this sum, because the ladylove that had jilted him liked eggs, cornered the one hundred and ten dozen

eggs on the Dawson market, paying twentyfour dollars a dozen for them and promptly feeding them to the

Champagne sold at from forty to fifty dollars a quart, and canned oyster stew at fifteen dollars. Daylight

indulged in no such luxuries. He did not mind treating a barroom of men to whiskey at fifty cents a drink,

but there was somewhere in his own extravagant nature a sense of fitness and arithmetic that revolted against

paying fifteen dollars for the contents of an oyster can. On the other hand, he possibly spent more money in

relieving hardluck cases than did the wildest of the new millionaires on insane debauchery. Father Judge, of

the hospital, could have told of far more important donations than that first ten sacks of flour. And oldtimers

who came to Daylight invariably went away relieved according to their need. But fifty dollars for a quart of

And yet he still, on occasion, made one of his oldtime hellroaring nights. But he did so for different

reasons. First, it was expected of him because it had been his way in the old days. And second, he could

afford it. But he no longer cared quite so much for that form of diversion. He had developed, in a new way,

the taste for power. It had become a lust with him. By far the wealthiest miner in Alaska, he wanted to be still

wealthier. It was a big game he was playing in, and he liked it better than any other game. In a way, the part

he played was creative. He was doing something. And at no time, striking another chord of his nature, could

he take the joy in a milliondollar Eldorado dump that was at all equivalent to the joy he took in watching his

two sawmills working and the big down river lografts swinging into the bank in the big eddy just above

Moosehide Mountain. Gold, even on the scales, was, after all, an abstraction. It represented things and the

power to do. But the sawmills were the things themselves, concrete and tangible, and they were things that

were a means to the doing of more things. They were dreams come true, hard and indubitable realizations of

With the summer rush from the Outside came special correspondents for the big newspapers and magazines,

and one and all, using unlimited space, they wrote Daylight up; so that, so far as the world was concerned,

Daylight loomed the largest figure in Alaska. Of course, after several months, the world became interested in

the Spanish War, and forgot all about him; but in the Klondike itself Daylight still remained the most

prominent figure. Passing along the streets of Dawson, all heads turned to follow him, and in the saloons

chechaquos watched him awesomely, scarcely taking their eyes from him as long as he remained in their

range of vision. Not alone was he the richest man in the country, but he was Burning Daylight, the pioneer,

the man who, almost in the midst of antiquity of that young land, had crossed the Chilcoot and drifted down

the Yukon to meet those elder giants, Al Mayo and Jack McQuestion. He was the Burning Daylight of scores

of wild adventures, the man who carried word to the icebound whaling fleet across the tundra wilderness to

the Arctic Sea, who raced the mail from Circle to Salt Water and back again in sixty days, who saved the

whole Tanana tribe from perishing in the winter of '91in short, the man who smote the chechaquos'

He had the fatal facility for selfadvertisement. Things he did, no matter how adventitious or spontaneous,

struck the popular imagination as remarkable. And the latest thing he had done was always on men's lips,

whether it was being first in the heartbreaking stampede to Danish Creek, in killing the record baldface

grizzly over on Sulphur Creek, or in winning the singlepaddle canoe race on the Queen's Birthday, after

being forced to participate at the last moment by the failure of the sourdough representative to appear. Thus,

one night in the Moosehorn, he locked horns with Jack Kearns in the longpromised return game of poker.

The sky and eight o'clock in the morning were made the limits, and at the close of the game Daylight's

winnings were two hundred and thirty thousand dollars. To Jack Kearns, already a severaltimes millionaire,

this loss was not vital. But the whole community was thrilled by the size of the stakes, and each one of the

Despite his many sources of revenue, Daylight's pyramiding kept him pinched for cash throughout the first

winter. The paygravel, thawed on bedrock and hoisted to the surface, immediately froze again. Thus his

dumps, containing several millions of gold, were inaccessible. Not until the returning sun thawed the dumps

and melted the water to wash them was he able to handle the gold they contained. And then he found himself

with a surplus of gold, deposited in the two newly organized banks; and he was promptly besieged by men

But he elected to play his own game, and he entered combinations only when they were generally defensive

or offensive. Thus, though he had paid the highest wages, he joined the Mineowners' Association,

engineered the fight, and effectually curbed the growing insubordination of the wageearners. Times had

changed. The old days were gone forever. This was a new era, and Daylight, the wealthy mineowner, was

loyal to his class affiliations. It was true, the oldtimers who worked for him, in order to be saved from the

club of the organized owners, were made foremen over the gang of chechaquos; but this, with Daylight, was a

matter of heart, not head. In his heart he could not forget the old days, while with his head he played the

But outside of such groupcombinations of exploiters, he refused to bind himself to any man's game. He was

playing a great lone hand, and he needed all his money for his own backing. The newly founded

stockexchange interested him keenly. He had never before seen such an institution, but he was quick to see

its virtues and to utilize it. Most of all, it was gambling, and on many an occasion not necessary for the

advancement of his own schemes, he, as he called it, went the stockexchange a flutter, out of sheer

"It sure beats faro," was his comment one day, when, after keeping the Dawson speculators in a fever for a

week by alternate bulling and bearing, he showed his hand and cleaned up what would have been a fortune to

Other men, having made their strike, had headed south for the States, taking a furlough from the grim Arctic

battle. But, asked when he was going Outside, Daylight always laughed and said when he had finished

playing his hand. He also added that a man was a fool to quit a game just when a winning hand had been

It was held by the thousands of heroworshipping chechaquos that Daylight was a man absolutely without

fear. But Bettles and Dan MacDonald and other sourdoughs shook their heads and laughed as they mentioned

women. And they were right. He had always been afraid of them from the time, himself a lad of seventeen,

when Queen Anne, of Juneau, made open and ridiculous love to him. For that matter, he never had known

women. Born in a miningcamp where they were rare and mysterious, having no sisters, his mother dying

while he was an infant, he had never been in contact with them. True, running away from Queen Anne, he

had later encountered them on the Yukon and cultivated an acquaintance with themthe pioneer ones who

crossed the passes on the trail of the men who had opened up the first diggings. But no lamb had ever walked

with a wolf in greater fear and trembling than had he walked with them. It was a matter of masculine pride

that he should walk with them, and he had done so in fair seeming; but women had remained to him a closed

And now, known as the King of the Klondike, carrying several other royal titles, such as Eldorado King,

Bonanza King, the Lumber Baron, and the Prince of the Stampeders, not to omit the proudest appellation of

all, namely, the Father of the Sourdoughs, he was more afraid of women than ever. As never before they held

out their arms to him, and more women were flocking into the country day by day. It mattered not whether he

sat at dinner in the gold commissioner's house, called for the drinks in a dancehall, or submitted to an

interview from the woman representative of the New York Sun, one and all of them held out their arms.

There was one exception, and that was Freda, the girl that danced, and to whom he had given the flour. She

was the only woman in whose company he felt at ease, for she alone never reached out her arms. And yet it

was from her that he was destined to receive next to his severest fright. It came about in the fall of 1897. He

was returning from one of his dashes, this time to inspect Henderson, a creek that entered the Yukon just

below the Stewart. Winter had come on with a rush, and he fought his way down the Yukon seventy miles in

a frail Peterborough canoe in the midst of a run of mushice. Hugging the rimice that had already solidly

formed, he shot across the icespewing mouth of the Klondike just in time to see a lone man dancing

excitedly on the rim and pointing into the water. Next, he saw the furclad body of a woman, face under,

sinking in the midst of the driving mushice. A lane opening in the swirl of the current, it was a matter of

seconds to drive the canoe to the spot, reach to the shoulder in the water, and draw the woman gingerly to the

canoe's side. It was Freda. And all might yet have been well with him, had she not, later, when brought back

to consciousness, blazed at him with angry blue eyes and demanded: "Why did you? Oh, why did you?"

This worried him. In the nights that followed, instead of sinking immediately to sleep as was his wont, he lay

awake, visioning her face and that blue blaze of wrath, and conning her words over and over. They rang with

sincerity. The reproach was genuine. She had meant just what she said. And still he pondered.

The next time he encountered her she had turned away from him angrily and contemptuously. And yet again,

she came to him to beg his pardon, and she dropped a hint of a man somewhere, sometime,she said not

how,who had left her with no desire to live. Her speech was frank, but incoherent, and all he gleaned from

it was that the event, whatever it was, had happened years before. Also, he gleaned that she had loved the

That was the thinglove. It caused the trouble. It was more terrible than frost or famine. Women were all

very well, in themselves good to look upon and likable; but along came this thing called love, and they were

seared to the bone by it, made so irrational that one could never guess what they would do next.

This Fredawoman was a splendid creature, fullbodied, beautiful, and nobody's fool; but love had come

along and soured her on the world, driving her to the Klondike and to suicide so compellingly that she was

Well, he had escaped love so far, just as he had escaped smallpox; yet there it was, as contagious as smallpox,

and a whole lot worse in running its course. It made men and women do such fearful and unreasonable things.

It was like delirium tremens, only worse. And if he, Daylight, caught it, he might have it as badly as any of

them. It was lunacy, stark lunacy, and contagious on top of it all. A half dozen young fellows were crazy over

Freda. They all wanted to marry her. Yet she, in turn, was crazy over that some other fellow on the other side

But it was left to the Virgin to give him his final fright. She was found one morning dead in her cabin. A shot

through the head had done it, and she had left no message, no explanation. Then came the talk. Some wit,

voicing public opinion, called it a case of too much Daylight. She had killed herself because of him.

Everybody knew this, and said so. The correspondents wrote it up, and once more Burning Daylight, King of

the Klondike, was sensationally featured in the Sunday supplements of the United States. The Virgin had

straightened up, so the featurestories ran, and correctly so. Never had she entered a Dawson City

dancehall. When she first arrived from Circle City, she had earned her living by washing clothes. Next, she

had bought a sewingmachine and made men's drill parkas, fur caps, and moosehide mittens. Then she had

gone as a clerk into the First Yukon Bank. All this, and more, was known and told, though one and all were

agreed that Daylight, while the cause, had been the innocent cause of her untimely end.

And the worst of it was that Daylight knew it was true. Always would he remember that last night he had

seen her. He had thought nothing of it at the time; but, looking back, he was haunted by every little thing that

had happened. In the light of the tragic event, he could understand everythingher quietness, that calm

certitude as if all vexing questions of living had been smoothed out and were gone, and that certain ethereal

sweetness about all that she had said and done that had been almost maternal. He remembered the way she

had looked at him, how she had laughed when he narrated Mickey Dolan's mistake in staking the fraction on

Skookum Gulch. Her laughter had been lightly joyous, while at the same time it had lacked its oldtime

robustness. Not that she had been grave or subdued. On the contrary, she had been so patently content, so

She had fooled him, fool that he was. He had even thought that night that her feeling for him had passed, and

he had taken delight in the thought, and caught visions of the satisfying future friendship that would be theirs

And then, when he stood at the door, cap in hand, and said good night. It had struck him at the time as a

funny and embarrassing thing, her bending over his hand and kissing it. He had felt like a fool, but he

shivered now when he looked back on it and felt again the touch of her lips on his hand. She was saying

goodby, an eternal goodby, and he had never guessed. At that very moment, and for all the moments of the

evening, coolly and deliberately, as he well knew her way, she had been resolved to die. If he had only

known it! Untouched by the contagious malady himself, nevertheless he would have married her if he had

had the slightest inkling of what she contemplated. And yet he knew, furthermore, that hers was a certain

stiffkneed pride that would not have permitted her to accept marriage as an act of philanthropy. There had

really been no saving her, after all. The lovedisease had fastened upon her, and she had been doomed from

Her one possible chance had been that he, too, should have caught it. And he had failed to catch it. Most

likely, if he had, it would have been from Freda or some other woman. There was Dartworthy, the college

man who had staked the rich fraction on Bonanza above Discovery. Everybody knew that old Doolittle's

daughter, Bertha, was madly in love with him. Yet, when he contracted the disease, of all women, it had been

with the wife of Colonel Walthstone, the great Guggenhammer mining expert. Result, three lunacy cases:

Dartworthy selling out his mine for onetenth its value; the poor woman sacrificing her respectability and

sheltered nook in society to flee with him in an open boat down the Yukon; and Colonel Walthstone,

breathing murder and destruction, taking out after them in another open boat. The whole impending tragedy

had moved on down the muddy Yukon, passing Forty Mile and Circle and losing itself in the wilderness

beyond. But there it was, love, disorganizing men's and women's lives, driving toward destruction and death,

turning topsyturvy everything that was sensible and considerate, making bawds or suicides out of virtuous

women, and scoundrels and murderers out of men who had always been clean and square.

For the first time in his life Daylight lost his nerve. He was badly and avowedly frightened. Women were

terrible creatures, and the lovegerm was especially plentiful in their neighborhood.

And they were so reckless, so devoid of fear. THEY were not frightened by what had happened to the Virgin.

They held out their arms to him more seductively than ever. Even without his fortune, reckoned as a mere

man, just past thirty, magnificently strong and equally goodlooking and goodnatured, he was a prize for

most normal women. But when to his natural excellences were added the romance that linked with his name

and the enormous wealth that was his, practically every free woman he encountered measured him with an

appraising and delighted eye, to say nothing of more than one woman who was not free. Other men might

have been spoiled by this and led to lose their heads; but the only effect on him was to increase his fright. As

a result he refused most invitations to houses where women might be met, and frequented bachelor boards

Six thousand spent the winter of 1897 in Dawson, work on the creeks went on apace, while beyond the passes

it was reported that one hundred thousand more were waiting for the spring. Late one brief afternoon,

Daylight, on the benches between French Hill and Skookum Hill, caught a wider vision of things. Beneath

him lay the richest part of Eldorado Creek, while up and down Bonanza he could see for miles. It was a scene

of a vast devastation. The hills, to their tops, had been shorn of trees, and their naked sides showed signs of

goring and perforating that even the mantle of snow could not hide. Beneath him, in every direction were the

cabins of men. But not many men were visible. A blanket of smoke filled the valleys and turned the gray day

to melancholy twilight. Smoke arose from a thousand holes in the snow, where, deep down on bedrock, in

the frozen muck and gravel, men crept and scratched and dug, and ever built more fires to break the grip of

the frost. Here and there, where new shafts were starting, these fires flamed redly. Figures of men crawled out

of the holes, or disappeared into them, or, on raised platforms of handhewn timber, windlassed the thawed

gravel to the surface, where it immediately froze. The wreckage of the spring washing appeared

everywherepiles of sluiceboxes, sections of elevated flumes, huge waterwheels,all the debris of an

He looked at the naked hills and realized the enormous wastage of wood that had taken place. From this

bird'seye view he realized the monstrous confusion of their excited workings. It was a gigantic inadequacy.

Each worked for himself, and the result was chaos. In this richest of diggings it cost out by their feverish,

unthinking methods another dollar was left hopelessly in the earth. Given another year, and most of the

claims would be worked out, and the sum of the gold taken out would no more than equal what was left

Organization was what was needed, he decided; and his quick imagination sketched Eldorado Creek, from

mouth to source, and from mountain top to mountain top, in the hands of one capable management. Even

steamthawing, as yet untried, but bound to come, he saw would be a makeshift. What should be done was to

hydraulic the valley sides and benches, and then, on the creek bottom, to use golddredges such as he had

There was the very chance for another big killing. He had wondered just what was precisely the reason for

the Guggenhammers and the big English concerns sending in their highsalaried experts. That was their

scheme. That was why they had approached him for the sale of workedout claims and tailings. They were

content to let the small mineowners gopher out what they could, for there would be millions in the leavings.

And, gazing down on the smoky inferno of crude effort, Daylight outlined the new game he would play, a

game in which the Guggenhammers and the rest would have to reckon with him. Cut along with the delight in

the new conception came a weariness. He was tired of the long Arctic years, and he was curious about the

Outsidethe great world of which he had heard other men talk and of which he was as ignorant as a child.

There were games out there to play. It was a larger table, and there was no reason why he with his millions

should not sit in and take a hand. So it was, that afternoon on Skookum Hill, that he resolved to play this last

It took time, however. He put trusted agents to work on the heels of great experts, and on the creeks where

they began to buy he likewise bought. Wherever they tried to corner a workedout creek, they found him

standing in the way, owning blocks of claims or artfully scattered claims that put all their plans to naught.

"I play youall wide open to winam I right" he told them once, in a heated conference.

Followed wars, truces, compromises, victories, and defeats. By 1898, sixty thousand men were on the

Klondike and all their fortunes and affairs rocked back and forth and were affected by the battles Daylight

fought. And more and more the taste for the larger game urged in Daylight's mouth. Here he was already

locked in grapples with the great Guggenhammers, and winning, fiercely winning. Possibly the severest

struggle was waged on Ophir, the veriest of moosepastures, whose lowgrade dirt was valuable only

because of its vastness. The ownership of a block of seven claims in the heart of it gave Daylight his grip and

they could not come to terms. The Guggenhammer experts concluded that it was too big for him to handle,

and when they gave him an ultimatum to that effect he accepted and bought them out.

The plan was his own, but he sent down to the States for competent engineers to carry it out. In the

Rinkabilly watershed, eighty miles away, he built his reservoir, and for eighty miles the huge wooden conduit

carried the water across country to Ophir. Estimated at three millions, the reservoir and conduit cost nearer

four. Nor did he stop with this. Electric power plants were installed, and his workings were lighted as well as

run by electricity. Other sourdoughs, who had struck it rich in excess of all their dreams, shook their heads

gloomily, warned him that he would go broke, and declined to invest in so extravagant a venture.

But Daylight smiled, and sold out the remainder of his townsite holdings. He sold at the right time, at the

height of the placer boom. When he prophesied to his old cronies, in the Moosehorn Saloon, that within five

years town lots in Dawson could not be given away, while the cabins would be chopped up for firewood, he

was laughed at roundly, and assured that the motherlode would be found ere that time. But he went ahead,

when his need for lumber was finished, selling out his sawmills as well. Likewise, he began to get rid of his

scattered holdings on the various creeks, and without thanks to any one he finished his conduit, built his

dredges, imported his machinery, and made the gold of Ophir immediately accessible. And he, who five years

before had crossed over the divide from Indian River and threaded the silent wilderness, his dogs packing

Indian fashion, himself living Indian fashion on straight moose meat, now heard the hoarse whistles calling

his hundreds of laborers to work, and watched them toil under the white glare of the arclamps.

But having done the thing, he was ready to depart. And when he let the word go out, the Guggenhammers

vied with the English concerns and with a new French company in bidding for Ophir and all its plant. The

Guggenhammers bid highest, and the price they paid netted Daylight a clean million. It was current rumor

that he was worth anywhere from twenty to thirty millions. But he alone knew just how he stood, and that,

with his last claim sold and the table swept clean of his winnings, he had ridden his hunch to the tune of just a

His departure was a thing that passed into the history of the Yukon along with his other deeds. All the Yukon

was his guest, Dawson the seat of the festivity. On that one last night no man's dust save his own was good.

Drinks were not to be purchased. Every saloon ran open, with extra relays of exhausted bartenders, and the

drinks were given away. A man who refused this hospitality, and persisted in paying, found a dozen fights on

his hands. The veriest chechaquos rose up to defend the name of Daylight from such insult. And through it

all, on moccasined feet, moved Daylight, hellroaring Burning Daylight, overspilling with good nature and

camaraderie, howling his hewolf howl and claiming the night as his, bending men's arms down on the bars,

performing feats of strength, his bronzed face flushed with drink, his black eyes flashing, clad in overalls and

blanket coat, his earflaps dangling and his gauntleted mittens swinging from the cord across the shoulders.

But this time it was neither an ante nor a stake that he threw away, but a mere marker in the game that he who

As a night, it eclipsed anything that Dawson had ever seen. It was Daylight's desire to make it memorable,

and his attempt was a success. A goodly portion of Dawson got drunk that night. The fall weather was on,

and, though the freezeup of the Yukon still delayed, the thermometer was down to twentyfive below zero

and falling. Wherefore, it was necessary to organize gangs of lifesavers, who patrolled the streets to pick up

drunken men from where they fell in the snow and where an hour's sleep would be fatal. Daylight, whose

whim it was to make them drunk by hundreds and by thousands, was the one who initiated this life saving.

He wanted Dawson to have its night, but, in his deeper processes never careless nor wanton, he saw to it that

it was a night without accident. And, like his olden nights, his ukase went forth that there should be no

quarrelling nor fighting, offenders to be dealt with by him personally. Nor did he have to deal with any.

Hundreds of devoted followers saw to it that the evilly disposed were rolled in the snow and hustled off to

bed. In the great world, where great captains of industry die, all wheels under their erstwhile management are

But in the Klondike, such was its hilarious sorrow at the departure of its captain, that for twentyfour hours

no wheels revolved. Even great Ophir, with its thousand men on the payroll, closed down. On the day after

Next morning, at break of day, Dawson said goodby. The thousands that lined the bank wore mittens and

their earflaps pulled down and tied. It was thirty below zero, the rimice was thickening, and the Yukon

carried a run of mushice. From the deck of the Seattle, Daylight waved and called his farewells. As the lines

were cast off and the steamer swung out into the current, those near him saw the moisture well up in

Daylight's eyes. In a way, it was to him departure from his native land, this grim Arctic region which was

In no blaze of glory did Burning Daylight descend upon San Francisco. Not only had he been forgotten, but

the Klondike along with him. The world was interested in other things, and the Alaskan adventure, like the

Spanish War, was an old story. Many things had happened since then. Exciting things were happening every

day, and the sensationspace of newspapers was limited. The effect of being ignored, however, was an

exhilaration. Big man as he had been in the Arctic game, it merely showed how much bigger was this new

game, when a man worth eleven millions, and with a history such as his, passed unnoticed.

He settled down in St. Francis Hotel, was interviewed by the cubreporters on the hotelrun, and received

brief paragraphs of notice for twentyfour hours. He grinned to himself, and began to look around and get

acquainted with the new order of beings and things. He was very awkward and very selfpossessed. In

addition to the stiffening afforded his backbone by the conscious ownership of eleven millions, he possessed

Nothing abashed him, nor was he appalled by the display and culture and power around him. It was another

kind of wilderness, that was all; and it was for him to learn the ways of it, the signs and trails and waterholes

where good hunting lay, and the bad stretches of field and flood to be avoided. As usual, he fought shy of the

women. He was still too badly scared to come to close quarters with the dazzling and resplendent creatures

They looked and longed, but he so concealed his timidity that he had all the seeming of moving boldly among

them. Nor was it his wealth alone that attracted them. He was too much a man, and too much an unusual type

of man. Young yet, barely thirtysix, eminently handsome, magnificently strong, almost bursting with a

splendid virility, his free trailstride, never learned on pavements, and his black eyes, hinting of great spaces

and unwearied with the close perspective of the city dwellers, drew many a curious and wayward feminine

glance. He saw, grinned knowingly to himself, and faced them as so many dangers, with a cool demeanor that

was a far greater personal achievement than had they been famine, frost, or flood.

He had come down to the States to play the man's game, not the woman's game; and the men he had not yet

learned. They struck him as softsoft physically; yet he divined them hard in their dealings, but hard under

an exterior of supple softness. It struck him that there was something catlike about them. He met them in the

clubs, and wondered how real was the goodfellowship they displayed and how quickly they would

unsheathe their claws and gouge and rend. "That's the proposition," he repeated to himself; "what will

theyall do when the play is close and down to brass tacks?" He felt unwarrantably suspicious of them.

"They're sure slick," was his secret judgment; and from bits of gossip dropped now and again he felt his

judgment well buttressed. On the other hand, they radiated an atmosphere of manliness and the fair play that

goes with manliness. They might gouge and rend in a fightwhich was no more than natural; but he felt,

somehow, that they would gouge and rend according to rule. This was the impression he got of thema

generalization tempered by knowledge that there was bound to be a certain percentage of scoundrels among

Several months passed in San Francisco during which time he studied the game and its rules, and prepared

himself to take a hand. He even took private instruction in English, and succeeded in eliminating his worst

faults, though in moments of excitement he was prone to lapse into "youall," "knowed," "sure," and similar

solecisms. He learned to eat and dress and generally comport himself after the manner of civilized man; but

through it all he remained himself, not unduly reverential nor considerative, and never hesitating to stride

roughshod over any softfaced convention if it got in his way and the provocation were great enough. Also,

and unlike the average run of weaker men coming from back countries and far places, he failed to reverence

the particular tin gods worshipped variously by the civilized tribes of men. He had seen totems before, and

Tiring of being merely an onlooker, he ran up to Nevada, where the new goldmining boom was fairly

started"just to try a flutter," as he phrased it to himself. The flutter on the Tonopah Stock Exchange lasted

just ten days, during which time his smashing, wildbull game played ducks and drakes with the more

stereotyped gamblers, and at the end of which time, having gambled Floridel into his fist, he let go for a net

profit of half a million. Whereupon, smacking his lips, he departed for San Francisco and the St. Francis

And once more the papers sensationalized him. BURNING DAYLIGHT was a bigletter headline again.

Old files of magazines and newspapers were searched through, and the romantic and historic Elam Harnish,

Adventurer of the Frost, King of the Klondike, and father of the Sourdoughs, strode upon the breakfast table

of a million homes along with the toast and breakfast foods. Even before his elected time, he was forcibly

launched into the game. Financiers and promoters, and all the flotsam and jetsam of the sea of speculation

surged upon the shores of his eleven millions. In selfdefence he was compelled to open offices. He had

made them sit up and take notice, and now, willynilly, they were dealing him hands and clamoring for him

to play. Well, play he would; he'd show 'em; even despite the elated prophesies made of how swiftly he

would be trimmedprophesies coupled with descriptions of the bucolic game he would play and of his wild

He dabbled in little things at first"stalling for time," as he explained it to Holdsworthy, a friend he had

made at the AltaPacific Club. Daylight himself was a member of the club, and Holdsworthy had proposed

him. And it was well that Daylight played closely at first, for he was astounded by the multitudes of

He saw through their schemes readily enough, and even marveled that such numbers of them could find

sufficient prey to keep them going. Their rascality and general dubiousness was so transparent that he could

And then he found that there were sharks and sharks. Holdsworthy treated him more like a brother than a

mere fellowclubman, watching over him, advising him, and introducing him to the magnates of the local

financial world. Holdsworthy's family lived in a delightful bungalow near Menlo Park, and here Daylight

spent a number of weekends, seeing a fineness and kindness of home life of which he had never dreamed.

Holdsworthy was an enthusiast over flowers, and a half lunatic over raising prize poultry; and these

engrossing madnesses were a source of perpetual joy to Daylight, who looked on in tolerant good humor.

Such amiable weaknesses tokened the healthfulness of the man, and drew Daylight closer to him. A

prosperous, successful business man without great ambition, was Daylight's estimate of hima man too

easily satisfied with the small stakes of the game ever to launch out in big play.

On one such weekend visit, Holdsworthy let him in on a good thing, a good little thing, a brickyard at Glen

Ellen. Daylight listened closely to the other's description of the situation. It was a most reasonable venture,

and Daylight's one objection was that it was so small a matter and so far out of his line; and he went into it

only as a matter of friendship, Holdsworthy explaining that he was himself already in a bit, and that while it

was a good thing, he would be compelled to make sacrifices in other directions in order to develop it.

Daylight advanced the capital, fifty thousand dollars, and, as he laughingly explained afterward, "I was stung,

all right, but it wasn't Holdsworthy that did it half as much as those blamed chickens and fruittrees of his."

It was a good lesson, however, for he learned that there were few faiths in the business world, and that even

the simple, homely faith of breaking bread and eating salt counted for little in the face of a worthless

But the sharks and sharks of various orders and degrees, he concluded, were on the surface. Deep down, he

divined, were the integrities and the stabilities. These big captains of industry and masters of finance, he

decided, were the men to work with. By the very nature of their huge deals and enterprises they had to play

fair. No room there for little sharpers' tricks and bunco games. It was to be expected that little men should salt

goldmines with a shotgun and work off worthless brickyards on their friends, but in high finance such

methods were not worth while. There the men were engaged in developing the country, organizing its

railroads, opening up its mines, making accessible its vast natural resources. Their play was bound to be big

So it was that he resolved to leave the little men, the Holdsworthys, alone; and, while he met them in

goodfellowship, he chummed with none, and formed no deep friendships. He did not dislike the little men,

the men of the AltaPacific, for instance. He merely did not elect to choose them for partners in the big game

in which he intended to play. What that big game was, even he did not know. He was waiting to find it. And

in the meantime he played small hands, investing in several aridlands reclamation projects and keeping his

And then he met John Dowsett, the great John Dowsett. The whole thing was fortuitous. This cannot be

doubted, as Daylight himself knew, it was by the merest chance, when in Los Angeles, that he heard the tuna

were running strong at Santa Catalina, and went over to the island instead of returning directly to San

Francisco as he had planned. There he met John Dowsett, resting off for several days in the middle of a flying

western trip. Dowsett had of course heard of the spectacular Klondike King and his rumored thirty millions,

and he certainly found himself interested by the man in the acquaintance that was formed. Somewhere along

in this acquaintanceship the idea must have popped into his brain. But he did not broach it, preferring to

mature it carefully. So he talked in large general ways, and did his best to be agreeable and win Daylight's

It was the first big magnate Daylight had met face to face, and he was pleased and charmed. There was such a

kindly humanness about the man, such a genial democraticness, that Daylight found it hard to realize that this

was THE John Dowsett, president of a string of banks, insurance manipulator, reputed ally of the lieutenants

Physically, he guaranteed all that Daylight knew of him. Despite his sixty years and snowwhite hair, his

handshake was firmly hearty, and he showed no signs of decrepitude, walking with a quick, snappy step,

making all movements definitely and decisively. His skin was a healthy pink, and his thin, clean lips knew

the way to writhe heartily over a joke. He had honest blue eyes of palest blue; they looked out at one keenly

and frankly from under shaggy gray brows. His mind showed itself disciplined and orderly, and its workings

struck Daylight as having all the certitude of a steel trap. He was a man who KNEW and who never decorated

his knowledge with foolish frills of sentiment or emotion. That he was accustomed to command was patent,

and every word and gesture tingled with power. Combined with this was his sympathy and tact, and Daylight

could note easily enough all the earmarks that distinguished him from a little man of the Holdsworthy caliber.

Daylight knew also his history, the prime old American stock from which he had descended, his own war

record, the John Dowsett before him who had been one of the banking buttresses of the Cause of the Union,

the Commodore Dowsett of the War of 1812 the General Dowsett of Revolutionary fame, and that first far

"He's sure the real thing," he told one of his fellowclubmen afterwards, in the smokingroom of the

AltaPacific. "I tell you, Gallon, he was a genuine surprise to me. I knew the big ones had to be like that, but

He's one of the fellows that does things. You can see it sticking out all over him. He's one in a thousand, that's

straight, a man to tie to. There's no limit to any game he plays, and you can stack on it that he plays right up

to the handle. I bet he can lose or win half a dozen million without batting an eye."

Gallon puffed at his cigar, and at the conclusion of the panegyric regarded the other curiously; but Daylight,

"Nope, not the slightest idea. Here's kindness. I was just explaining that I'd come to understand how these big

fellows do big things. Why, dye know, he gave me such a feeling that he knew everything, that I was plumb

"I guess I could give him cards and spades when it comes to driving a dogteam, though," Daylight observed,

after a meditative pause. "And I really believe I could put him on to a few wrinkles in poker and placer

mining, and maybe in paddling a birch canoe. And maybe I stand a better chance to learn the game he's been

playing all his life than he would stand of learning the game I played up North."

It was not long afterward that Daylight came on to New York. A letter from John Dowsett had been the

causea simple little typewritten letter of several lines. But Daylight had thrilled as he read it. He

remembered the thrill that was his, a callow youth of fifteen, when, in Tempas Butte, through lack of a fourth

man, Tom Galsworthy, the gambler, had said, "Get in, Kid; take a hand." That thrill was his now. The bald,

typewritten sentences seemed gorged with mystery. "Our Mr. Howison will call upon you at your hotel. He is

to be trusted. We must not be seen together. You will understand after we have had our talk." Daylight

conned the words over and over. That was it. The big game had arrived, and it looked as if he were being

invited to sit in and take a hand. Surely, for no other reason would one man so peremptorily invite another

They metthanks to "our" Mr. Howison,up the Hudson, in a magnificent country home. Daylight,

according to instructions, arrived in a private motorcar which had been furnished him. Whose car it was he

did not know any more than did he know the owner of the house, with its generous, rolling, treestudded

lawns. Dowsett was already there, and another man whom Daylight recognized before the introduction was

begun. It was Nathaniel Letton, and none other. Daylight had seen his face a score of times in the magazines

and newspapers, and read about his standing in the financial world and about his endowed University of

Daratona. He, likewise, struck Daylight as a man of power, though he was puzzled in that he could find no

likeness to Dowsett. Except in the matter of cleanness,a cleanness that seemed to go down to the deepest

fibers of him,Nathaniel Letton was unlike the other in every particular. Thin to emaciation, he seemed a

cold flame of a man, a man of a mysterious, chemic sort of flame, who, under a glacierlike exterior,

conveyed, somehow, the impression of the ardent heat of a thousand suns. His large gray eyes were mainly

responsible for this feeling, and they blazed out feverishly from what was almost a death'shead, so thin was

the face, the skin of which was a ghastly, dull, dead white. Not more than fifty, thatched with a sparse growth

of irongray hair, he looked several times the age of Dowsett. Yet Nathaniel Letton possessed

controlDaylight could see that plainly. He was a thinfaced ascetic, living in a state of high, attenuated

calma molten planet under a transcontinental ice sheet. And yet, above all most of all, Daylight was

impressed by the terrific and almost awful cleanness of the man. There was no dross in him. He had all the

seeming of having been purged by fire. Daylight had the feeling that a healthy manoath would be a deadly

They drankthat is, Nathaniel Letton took mineral water served by the smoothly operating machine of a

lackey who inhabited the place, while Dowsett took Scotch and soda and Daylight a cocktail. Nobody seemed

to notice the unusualness of a Martini at midnight, though Daylight looked sharply for that very thing; for he

had long since learned that Martinis had their strictly appointed times and places. But he liked Martinis, and,

being a natural man, he chose deliberately to drink when and how he pleased. Others had noticed this peculiar

habit of his, but not so Dowsett and Letton; and Daylight's secret thought was: "They sure wouldn't bat an eye

Leon Guggenhammer arrived in the midst of the drink, and ordered Scotch. Daylight studied him curiously.

This was one of the great Guggenhammer family; a younger one, but nevertheless one of the crowd with

which he had locked grapples in the North. Nor did Leon Guggenhammer fail to mention cognizance of that

old affair. He complimented Daylight on his prowess"The echoes of Ophir came down to us, you know.

And I must say, Mr. Daylighter, Mr. Harnish, that you whipped us roundly in that affair."

Echoes! Daylight could not escape the shock of the phraseechoes had come down to them of the fight into

which he had flung all his strength and the strength of his Klondike millions. The Guggenhammers sure must

go some when a fight of that dimension was no more than a skirmish of which they deigned to hear echoes.

"They sure play an almighty big game down here," was his conclusion, accompanied by a corresponding

elation that it was just precisely that almighty big game in which he was about to be invited to play a hand.

For the moment he poignantly regretted that rumor was not true, and that his eleven millions were not in

reality thirty millions. Well, that much he would be frank about; he would let them know exactly how many

Leon Guggenhammer was young and fat. Not a day more than thirty, his face, save for the adumbrated puff

sacks under the eyes, was as smooth and lineless as a boy's. He, too, gave the impression of cleanness. He

showed in the pink of health; his unblemished, smoothshaven skin shouted advertisement of his splendid

physical condition. In the face of that perfect skin, his very fatness and mature, rotund paunch could be

nothing other than normal. He was constituted to be prone to fatness, that was all.

The talk soon centred down to business, though Guggenhammer had first to say his say about the

forthcoming international yacht race and about his own palatial steam yacht, the Electra, whose recent

engines were already antiquated. Dowsett broached the plan, aided by an occasional remark from the other

two, while Daylight asked questions. Whatever the proposition was, he was going into it with his eyes open.

"They will never dream you are with us," Guggenhammer interjected, as the outlining of the matter drew to a

close, his handsome Jewish eyes flashing enthusiastically. "They'll think you are raiding on your own in

"Of course, you understand, Mr. Harnish, the absolute need for keeping our alliance in the dark," Nathaniel

Daylight nodded his head. "And you also understand," Letton went on, "that the result can only be productive

of good. The thing is legitimate and right, and the only ones who may be hurt are the stock gamblers

themselves. It is not an attempt to smash the market. As you see yourself, you are to bull the market. The

"Yes, that's the very thing," Dowsett said. "The commercial need for copper is continually increasing. Ward

Valley Copper, and all that it stands for,practically onequarter of the world's supply, as I have shown

you,is a big thing, how big, even we can scarcely estimate. Our arrangements are made. We have plenty of

capital ourselves, and yet we want more. Also, there is too much Ward Valley out to suit our present plans.

"Yes, just that. Not only will you bull Ward Valley, but you will at the same time gather Ward Valley in. This

will be of inestimable advantage to us, while you and all of us will profit by it as well. And as Mr. Letton has

pointed out, the thing is legitimate and square. On the eighteenth the directors meet, and, instead of the

"The shorts will be the speculators," Nathaniel Letton explained, "the gamblers, the froth of Wall

Streetyou understand. The genuine investors will not be hurt. Furthermore, they will have learned for the

thousandth time to have confidence in Ward Valley. And with their confidence we can carry through the

"There will be all sorts of rumors on the street," Dowsett warned Daylight, "but do not let them frighten you.

These rumors may even originate with us. You can see how and why clearly. But rumors are to be no concern

of yours. You are on the inside. All you have to do is buy, buy, buy, and keep on buying to the last stroke,

when the directors declare the double dividend. Ward Valley will jump so that it won't be feasible to buy after

"What we want," Letton took up the strain, pausing significantly to sip his mineral water, "what we want is to

take large blocks of Ward Valley off the hands of the public. We could do this easily enough by depressing

the market and frightening the holders. And we could do it more cheaply in such fashion. But we are absolute

masters of the situation, and we are fair enough to buy Ward Valley on a rising market. Not that we are

philanthropists, but that we need the investors in our big development scheme. Nor do we lose directly by the

transaction. The instant the action of the directors becomes known, Ward Valley will rush heavenward. In

addition, and outside the legitimate field of the transaction, we will pinch the shorts for a very large sum. But

that is only incidental, you understand, and in a way, unavoidable. On the other hand, we shall not turn up our

noses at that phase of it. The shorts shall be the veriest gamblers, of course, and they will get no more than

"And one other thing, Mr. Harnish," Guggenhammer said, "if you exceed your available cash, or the amount

you care to invest in the venture, don't fail immediately to call on us. Remember, we are behind you."

"Now about that double dividend on the eighteenth" John Dowsett drew a slip of paper from his notebook

And thereupon he entered into a long technical and historical explanation of the earnings and dividends of

The whole conference lasted not more than an hour, during which time Daylight lived at the topmost of the

highest peak of life that he had ever scaled. These men were big players. They were powers. True, as he knew

himself, they were not the real inner circle. They did not rank with the Morgans and Harrimans. And yet they

were in touch with those giants and were themselves lesser giants. He was pleased, too, with their attitude

toward him. They met him deferentially, but not patronizingly. It was the deference of equality, and Daylight

could not escape the subtle flattery of it; for he was fully aware that in experience as well as wealth they were

"We'll shake up the speculating crowd," Leon Guggenhammer proclaimed jubilantly, as they rose to go. "And

you are the man to do it, Mr. Harnish. They are bound to think you are on your own, and their shears are all

"They will certainly be misled," Letton agreed, his eerie gray eyes blazing out from the voluminous folds of

the huge Mueller with which he was swathing his neck to the ears. "Their minds run in ruts. It is the

unexpected that upsets their stereotyped calculationsany new combination, any strange factor, any fresh

variant. And you will be all that to them, Mr. Harnish. And I repeat, they are gamblers, and they will deserve

all that befalls them. They clog and cumber all legitimate enterprise. You have no idea of the trouble they

cause men like ussometimes, by their gambling tactics, upsetting the soundest plans, even overturning the

Dowsett and young Guggenhammer went away in one motorcar, and Letton by himself in another. Daylight,

with still in the forefront of his consciousness all that had occurred in the preceding hour, was deeply

impressed by the scene at the moment of departure. The three machines stood like weird night monsters at the

gravelled foot of the wide stairway under the unlighted portecochere. It was a dark night, and the lights of

the motorcars cut as sharply through the blackness as knives would cut through solid substance. The

obsequious lackeythe automatic genie of the house which belonged to none of the three men,stood like

a graven statue after having helped them in. The furcoated chauffeurs bulked dimly in their seats. One after

the other, like spurred steeds, the cars leaped into the blackness, took the curve of the driveway, and were

Daylight's car was the last, and, peering out, he caught a glimpse of the unlighted house that loomed hugely

through the darkness like a mountain. Whose was it? he wondered. How came they to use it for their secret

conference? Would the lackey talk? How about the chauffeurs? Were they trusted men like "our" Mr.

Howison? Mystery? The affair was alive with it. And hand in hand with mystery walked Power. He leaned

back and inhaled his cigarette. Big things were afoot. The cards were shuffled even the for a mighty deal, and

he was in on it. He remembered back to his poker games with Jack Kearns, and laughed aloud. He had played

for thousands in those days on the turn of a card; but now he was playing for millions. And on the eighteenth,

when that dividend was declared, he chuckled at the confusion that would inevitably descend upon the men

Back at his hotel, though nearly two in the morning, he found the reporters waiting to interview him. Next

morning there were more. And thus, with blare of paper trumpet, was he received by New York. Once more,

with beating of tomstoms and wild hullaballoo, his picturesque figure strode across the printed sheet. The

King of the Klondike, the hero of the Arctic, the thirtymilliondollar millionaire of the North, had come to

New York. What had he come for? To trim the New Yorkers as he had trimmed the Tonopah crowd in

Nevada? Wall Street had best watch out, for the wild man of Klondike had just come to town. Or, perchance,

would Wall Street trim him? Wall Street had trimmed many wild men; would this be Burning Daylight's fate?

Daylight grinned to himself, and gave out ambiguous interviews. It helped the game, and he grinned again, as

They were prepared for him to play, and, when heavy buying of Ward Valley began, it was quickly decided

that he was the operator. Financial gossip buzzed and hummed. He was after the Guggenhammers once more.

The story of Ophir was told over again and sensationalized until even Daylight scarcely recognized it. Still, it

was all grist to his mill. The stock gamblers were clearly befooled. Each day he increased his buying, and so

eager were the sellers that Ward Valley rose but slowly. "It sure beats poker," Daylight whispered gleefully to

himself, as he noted the perturbation he was causing. The newspapers hazarded countless guesses and

surmises, and Daylight was constantly dogged by a small battalion of reporters. His own interviews were

gems. Discovering the delight the newspapers took in his vernacular, in his "youalls," and "sures," and

"surgeups," he even exaggerated these particularities of speech, exploiting the phrases he had heard other

A wildly exciting time was his during the week preceding Thursday the eighteenth. Not only was he

gambling as he had never gambled before, but he was gambling at the biggest table in the world and for

stakes so large that even the casehardened habitues of that table were compelled to sit up. In spite of the

unlimited selling, his persistent buying compelled Ward Valley steadily to rise, and as Thursday approached,

the situation became acute. Something had to smash. How much Ward Valley was this Klondike gambler

going to buy? How much could he buy? What was the Ward Valley crowd doing all this time? Daylight

appreciated the interviews with them that appearedinterviews delightfully placid and noncommittal. Leon

Guggenhammer even hazarded the opinion that this Northland Croesus might possibly be making a mistake.

But not that they cared, John Dowsett explained. Nor did they object. While in the dark regarding his

intentions, of one thing they were certain; namely, that he was bulling Ward Valley. And they did not mind

that. No matter what happened to him and his spectacular operations, Ward Valley was all right, and would

remain all right, as firm as the Rock of Gibraltar. No; they had no Ward Valley to sell, thank you. This purely

fictitious state of the market was bound shortly to pass, and Ward Valley was not to be induced to change the

even tenor of its way by any insane stock exchange flurry. "It is purely gambling from beginning to end,"

were Nathaniel Letton's words; "and we refuse to have anything to do with it or to take notice of it in any

During this time Daylight had several secret meetings with his partnersone with Leon Guggenhammer, one

with John Dowsett, and two with Mr. Howison. Beyond congratulations, they really amounted to nothing;

But on Tuesday morning a rumor that was disconcerting came to Daylight's ears. It was also published in the

Wall Street Journal, and it was to the effect, on apparently straight inside information, that on Thursday,

when the directors of Ward Valley met, instead of the customary dividend being declared, an assessment

would be levied. It was the first check Daylight had received. It came to him with a shock that if the thing

were so he was a broken man. And it also came to him that all this colossal operating of his was being done

on his own money. Dowsett, Guggenhammer, and Letton were risking nothing. It was a panic, shortlived, it

was true, but sharp enough while it lasted to make him remember Holdsworthy and the brickyard, and to

"Nothing in itonly a rumor," came Leon Guggenhammer's throaty voice in the receiver. "As you know,"

said Nathaniel Letton, "I am one of the directors, and I should certainly be aware of it were such action

contemplated. And John Dowsett: "I warned you against just such rumors. There is not an iota of truth in

Heartily ashamed of himself for his temporary loss of nerve, Daylight returned to his task. The cessation of

buying had turned the Stock Exchange into a bedlam, and down all the line of stocks the bears were

smashing. Ward Valley, as the ape, received the brunt of the shock, and was already beginning to tumble.

Daylight calmly doubled his buying orders. And all through Tuesday and Wednesday, and Thursday

morning, he went on buying, while Ward Valley rose triumphantly higher. Still they sold, and still he bought,

exceeding his power to buy many times over, when delivery was taken into account. What of that? On this

day the double dividend would be declared, he assured himself. The pinch of delivery would be on the shorts.

And then the thunderbolt struck. True to the rumor, Ward Valley levied the assessment. Daylight threw up his

arms. He verified the report and quit. Not alone Ward Valley, but all securities were being hammered down

by the triumphant bears. As for Ward Valley, Daylight did not even trouble to learn if it had fetched bottom

or was still tumbling. Not stunned, not even bewildered, while Wall Street went mad, Daylight withdrew

from the field to think it over. After a short conference with his brokers, he proceeded to his hotel, on the way

picking up the evening papers and glancing at the headlines. BURNING DAYLIGHT CLEANED OUT, he

read; DAYLIGHT GETS HIS; ANOTHER WESTERNER FAILS TO FIND EASY MONEY. As he entered

his hotel, a later edition announced the suicide of a young man, a lamb, who had followed Daylight's play.

He passed up to his rooms, ordered a Martini cocktail, took off his shoes, and sat down to think. After half an

hour he roused himself to take the drink, and as he felt the liquor pass warmingly through his body, his

features relaxed into a slow, deliberate, yet genuine grin. He was laughing at himself.

Then the grin died away, and his face grew bleak and serious. Leaving out his interests in the several Western

reclamation projects (which were still assessing heavily), he was a ruined man. But harder hit than this was

his pride. He had been so easy. They had goldbricked him, and he had nothing to show for it. The simplest

farmer would have had documents, while he had nothing but a gentleman's agreement, and a verbal one at

that. Gentleman's agreement. He snorted over it. John Dowsett's voice, just as he had heard it in the telephone

receiver, sounded in his ears the words, "On my honor as a gentleman." They were sneakthieves and

swindlers, that was what they were, and they had given him the doublecross. The newspapers were right. He

had come to New York to be trimmed, and Messrs. Dowsett, Letton, and Guggenhammer had done it. He was

a little fish, and they had played with him ten daysample time in which to swallow him, along with his

eleven millions. Of course, they had been unloading on him all the time, and now they were buying Ward

Valley back for a song ere the market righted itself. Most probably, out of his share of the swag, Nathaniel

Letton would erect a couple of new buildings for that university of his. Leon Guggenhammer would buy new

engines for that yacht, or a whole fleet of yachts. But what the devil Dowsett would do with his whack, was

And Daylight sat and consumed cocktails and saw back in his life to Alaska, and lived over the grim years in

which he had battled for his eleven millions. For a while murder ate at his heart, and wild ideas and sketchy

plans of killing his betrayers flashed through his mind. That was what that young man should have done

instead of killing himself. He should have gone gunning. Daylight unlocked his grip and took out his

automatic pistola big Colt's .44. He released the safety catch with his thumb, and operating the sliding

outer barrel, ran the contents of the clip through the mechanism. The eight cartridges slid out in a stream. He

refilled the clip, threw a cartridge into the chamber, and, with the trigger at full cock, thrust up the safety

ratchet. He shoved the weapon into the side pocket of his coat, ordered another Martini, and resumed his seat.

He thought steadily for an hour, but he grinned no more. Lines formed in his face, and in those lines were the

travail of the North, the bite of the frost, all that he had achieved and sufferedthe long, unending weeks of

trail, the bleak tundra shore of Point Barrow, the smashing icejam of the Yukon, the battles with animals

and men, the leandragged days of famine, the long months of stinging hell among the mosquitoes of the

Koyokuk, the toil of pick and shovel, the scars and mars of packstrap and tumpline, the straight meat diet

with the dogs, and all the long procession of twenty full years of toil and sweat and endeavor.

At ten o'clock he arose and pored over the city directory. Then he put on his shoes, took a cab, and departed

into the night. Twice he changed cabs, and finally fetched up at the night office of a detective agency. He

superintended the thing himself, laid down money in advance in profuse quantities, selected the six men he

needed, and gave them their instructions. Never, for so simple a task, had they been so well paid; for, to each,

in addition to office charges, he gave a fivehundreddollar bill, with the promise of another if he succeeded.

Some time next day, he was convinced, if not sooner, his three silent partners would come together. To each

one two of his detectives were to be attached. Time and place was all he wanted to learn.

"Stop at nothing, boys," were his final instructions. "I must have this information. Whatever you do, whatever

Returning to his hotel, he changed cabs as before, went up to his room, and with one more cocktail for a

nightcap, went to bed and to sleep. In the morning he dressed and shaved, ordered breakfast and the

newspapers sent up, and waited. But he did not drink. By nine o'clock his telephone began to ring and the

reports to come in. Nathaniel Letton was taking the train at Tarrytown. John Dowsett was coming down by

the subway. Leon Guggenhammer had not stirred out yet, though he was assuredly within. And in this

fashion, with a map of the city spread out before him, Daylight followed the movements of his three men as

they drew together. Nathaniel Letton was at his offices in the MutualSolander Building. Next arrived

Guggenhammer. Dowsett was still in his own offices. But at eleven came the word that he also had arrived,

and several minutes later Daylight was in a hired motorcar and speeding for the MutualSolander Building.

Nathaniel Letton was talking when the door opened; he ceased, and with his two companions gazed with

controlled perturbation at Burning Daylight striding into the room. The free, swinging movements of the

trailtraveler were unconsciously exaggerated in that stride of his. In truth, it seemed to him that he felt the

"Howdy, gentlemen, howdy," he remarked, ignoring the unnatural calm with which they greeted his entrance.

He shook hands with them in turn, striding from one to another and gripping their hands so heartily that

Nathaniel Letton could not forbear to wince. Daylight flung himself into a massive chair and sprawled lazily,

with an appearance of fatigue. The leather grip he had brought into the room he dropped carelessly beside

"Goddle mighty, but I've sure been going some," he sighed. "We sure trimmed them beautiful. It was real

slick. And the beauty of the play never dawned on me till the very end. It was pure and simple knock down

The geniality in his lazy Western drawl reassured them. He was not so formidable, after all. Despite the act

that he had effected an entrance in the face of Letton's instructions to the outer office, he showed no

"Well," Daylight demanded goodhumoredly, "ain't youall got a good word for your pardner? Or has his

Letton made a dry sound in his throat. Dowsett sat quietly and waited, while Leon Guggenhammer struggled

"Didn't I, though!" he proclaimed jubilantly. "And didn't we fool'em! I was totally surprised. I never dreamed

"And now," he went on, not permitting the pause to grow awkward, "weall might as well have an

accounting. I'm pullin' West this afternoon on that blamed Twentieth Century." He tugged at his grip, got it

open, and dipped into it with both his hands. "But don't forget, boys, when youall want me to hornswoggle

Wall Street another flutter, all youall have to do is whisper the word. I'll sure be right there with the goods."

His hands emerged, clutching a great mass of stubs, checkbooks, and broker's receipts. These he deposited

in a heap on the big table, and dipping again, he fished out the stragglers and added them to the pile. He

"Ten million twentyseven thousand and fortytwo dollars and sixtyeight cents is my figurin' on my

expenses. Of course thatall's taken from the winnings before weall get to figurin' on the whackup.

The three men looked their bepuzzlement at one another. The man was a bigger fool than they had imagined,

"It will take some hours yet, Mr. Harnish, before the full accounting can be made. Mr. Howison is at work

upon it now. Weahas you say, it has been a gratifying cleanup. Suppose we have lunch together and

talk it over. I'll have the clerks work through the noon hour, so that you will have ample time to catch your

Dowsett and Guggenhammer manifested a relief that was almost obvious. The situation was clearing. It was

disconcerting, under the circumstances, to be pent in the same room with this heavymuscled, Indianlike

man whom they had robbed. They remembered unpleasantly the many stories of his strength and

recklessness. If Letton could only put him off long enough for them to escape into the policed world outside

the office door, all would be well; and Daylight showed all the signs of being put off.

"I'm real glad to hear that," he said. "I don't want to miss that train, and youall have done me proud,

gentlemen, letting me in on this deal. I just do appreciate it without being able to express my feelings. But I

am sure almighty curious, and I'd like terrible to know, Mr. Letton, what your figures of our winning is. Can

Nathaniel Letton did not look appealingly at his two friends, but in the brief pause they felt that appeal pass

out from him. Dowsett, of sterner mould than the others, began to divine that the Klondiker was playing. But

"It is extremelyerdifficult," Leon Guggenhammer began. "You see, Ward Valley has fluctuated so,

"It don't hurt if youall are a million or so out one side or the other. The figures'll straighten that up. But I'm

"Why continue to play at cross purposes?" Dowsett demanded abruptly and coldly. "Let us have the

explanation here and now. Mr. Harnish is laboring under a false impression, and he should be set straight. In

But Daylight interrupted. He had played too much poker to be unaware or unappreciative of the

psychological factor, and he headed Dowsett off in order to play the denouncement of the present game in his

"Speaking of deals," he said, "reminds me of a poker game I once seen in Reno, Nevada. It wa'n't what

youall would call a square game. Theyall was tinhorns that sat in. But they was a

tenderfootshorthorns theyall are called out there. He stands behind the dealer and sees that same dealer

give hisself four aces offen the bottom of the deck. The tenderfoot is sure shocked. He slides around to the

"'I'm tryin' to tell youall because I thought youall ought to know,' says the tenderfoot. 'I tell youall I seen

"'Say, mister,' says the player, 'youall'd better get outa here. Youall don't understand the game. It's his deal,

The laughter that greeted his story was hollow and perfunctory, but Daylight appeared not to notice it.

Daylight looked at him innocently and did not reply. He turned jovially to Nathaniel Letton.

"Fire away," he said. "Give us an approximation of our winning. As I said before, a million out one way or

the other won't matter, it's bound to be such an almighty big winning." By this time Letton was stiffened by

"I fear you are under a misapprehension, Mr. Harnish. There are no winnings to be divided with you. Now

Far from excited, Daylight had all the seeming of being stunned. He felt absently in his vest pocket for a

match, lighted it, and discovered that he had no cigarette. The three men watched him with the tense

closeness of cats. Now that it had come, they knew that they had a nasty few minutes before them.

"Do youall mind saying that over again?" Daylight said. "Seems to me I ain't got it just exactly right.

"I said you were under a misapprehension, Mr. Harnish, that was all. You have been stock gambling, and you

have been hard hit. But neither Ward Valley, nor I, nor my associates, feel that we owe you anything."

"Thatall represents ten million twentyseven thousand and fortytwo dollars and sixtyeight cents, hard

"I guess that story of mine had some meaning, after all." He laughed in a sickly fashion. "It was your deal all

right, and youall dole them right, too. Well, I ain't kicking. I'm like the player in that poker game. It was

your deal, and youall had a right to do your best. And you done itcleaned me out slicker'n a whistle."

"And thatall ain't worth the paper it's written on. Gol dast it, youall can sure deal 'em 'round when you get

a chance. Oh, no, I ain't akicking. It was your deal, and youall certainly done me, and a man ain't half a

man that squeals on another man's deal. And now the hand is played out, and the cards are on the table, and

His hand, dipping swiftly into his inside breast pocket, appeared with the big Colt's automatic.

"As I was saying, the old deal's finished. Now it's MY deal, and I'm agoing to see if I can hold them four

Nathaniel Letton's hand, creeping toward the pushbutton on the desk, was abruptly arrested.

"Change chairs," Daylight commanded. "Take that chair over there, you gangrenelivered skunk. Jump! By

God! or I'll make you leak till folks'll think your father was a water hydrant and your mother a

sprinklingcart. Youall move your chair alongside, Guggenhammer; and youall Dowsett, sit right there,

while I just irrelevantly explain the virtues of this here automatic. She's loaded for big game and she goes off

"Preliminary remarks being over, I now proceed to deal. Remember, I ain't making no remarks about your

deal. You done your darndest, and it was all right. But this is my deal, and it's up to me to do my darndest. In

the first place, youall know me. I'm Burning Daylightsavvee? Ain't afraid of God, devil, death, nor

destruction. Them's my four aces, and they sure copper your bets. Look at that there living skeleton. Letton,

you're sure afraid to die. Your bones is all rattling together you're that scared. And look at that fat Jew there.

This little weapon's sure put the fear of God in his heart. He's yellow as a sick persimmon. Dowsett, you're a

cool one. Youall ain't batted an eye nor turned a hair. That's because you're great on arithmetic. And that

makes youall dead easy in this deal of mine. You're sitting there and adding two and two together, and

youall know I sure got you skinned. You know me, and that I ain't afraid of nothing. And youall adds up

"Not by a damned sight. When the fun starts, you're the first I plug. I'll hang all right, but youall won't live

to see it. Youall die here and now while I'll die subject to the law's delaysavvee? Being dead, with grass

growing out of your carcasses, you won't know when I hang, but I'll sure have the pleasure a long time of

"It's sure too expensive. Youall ain't worth it. I'd sooner have my chips back. And I guess youall'd sooner

"Well, I've done dealt. It's up to youall to play. But while you're deliberating, I want to give youall a

warning: if that door opens and any one of you cusses lets on there's anything unusual, right here and then I

A long session of three hours followed. The deciding factor was not the big automatic pistol, but the certitude

that Daylight would use it. Not alone were the three men convinced of this, but Daylight himself was

convinced. He was firmly resolved to kill the men if his money was not forthcoming. It was not an easy

matter, on the spur of the moment, to raise ten millions in paper currency, and there were vexatious delays. A

dozen times Mr. Howison and the head clerk were summoned into the room. On these occasions the pistol lay

on Daylight's lap, covered carelessly by a newspaper, while he was usually engaged in rolling or lighting his

brownpaper cigarettes. But in the end, the thing was accomplished. A suitcase was brought up by one of

the clerks from the waiting motorcar, and Daylight snapped it shut on the last package of bills. He paused at

"There's three several things I sure want to tell youall. When I get outside this door, youall'll be set free to

act, and I just want to warn youall about what to do. In the first place, no warrants for my arrestsavvee?

This money's mine, and I ain't robbed you of it. If it gets out how you gave me the doublecross and how I

done you back again, the laugh'll be on you, and it'll sure be an almighty big laugh. Youall can't afford that

laugh. Besides, having got back my stake that youall robbed me of, if you arrest me and try to rob me a

second time, I'll go gunning for youall, and I'll sure get you. No little fraidcat shrimps like youall can skin

Burning Daylight. If you win you lose, and there'll sure be some several unexpected funerals around this

Just look me in the eye, and youall'll savvee I mean business. Them stubs and receipts on the table is all

As the door shut behind him, Nathaniel Letton sprang for the telephone, and Dowsett intercepted him.

"The police. It's downright robbery. I won't stand it. I tell you I won't stand it."

Dowsett smiled grimly, but at the same time bore the slender financier back and down into his chair.

"We'll talk it over," he said; and in Leon Guggenhammer he found an anxious ally.

And nothing ever came of it. The thing remained a secret with the three men. Nor did Daylight ever give the

secret away, though that afternoon, leaning back in his stateroom on the Twentieth Century, his shoes off, and

feet on a chair, he chuckled long and heartily. New York remained forever puzzled over the affair; nor could

it hit upon a rational explanation. By all rights, Burning Daylight should have gone broke, yet it was known

that he immediately reappeared in San Francisco possessing an apparently unimpaired capital. This was

evidenced by the magnitude of the enterprises he engaged in, such as, for instance, Panama Mail, by sheer

weight of money and fighting power wresting the control away from Shiftily and selling out in two months to

Back in San Francisco, Daylight quickly added to his reputation In ways it was not an enviable reputation.

Men were afraid of him. He became known as a fighter, a fiend, a tiger. His play was a ripping and smashing

one, and no one knew where or how his next blow would fall. The element of surprise was large. He balked

on the unexpected, and, fresh from the wild North, his mind not operating in stereotyped channels, he was

able in unusual degree to devise new tricks and stratagems. And once he won the advantage, he pressed it

remorselessly. "As relentless as a Red Indian," was said of him, and it was said truly.

On the other hand, he was known as "square." His word was as good as his bond, and this despite the fact that

he accepted nobody's word. He always shied at propositions based on gentlemen's agreements, and a man

who ventured his honor as a gentleman, in dealing with Daylight, inevitably was treated to an unpleasant

time. Daylight never gave his own word unless he held the whiphand. It was a case with the other fellow

Legitimate investment had no place in Daylight's play. It tied up his money, and reduced the element of risk.

It was the gambling side of business that fascinated him, and to play in his slashing manner required that his

money must be ready to hand. It was never tied up save for short intervals, for he was principally engaged in

turning it over and over, raiding here, there, and everywhere, a veritable pirate of the financial main. A

fiveper cent safe investment had no attraction for him; but to risk millions in sharp, harsh skirmish, standing

to lose everything or to win fifty or a hundred per cent, was the savor of life to him. He played according to

the rules of the game, but he played mercilessly. When he got a man or a corporation down and they

squealed, he gouged no less hard. Appeals for financial mercy fell on deaf ears. He was a free lance, and had

no friendly business associations. Such alliances as were formed from time to time were purely affairs of

expediency, and he regarded his allies as men who would give him the doublecross or ruin him if a

profitable chance presented. In spite of this point of view, he was faithful to his allies. But he was faithful just

as long as they were and no longer. The treason had to come from them, and then it was 'Ware Daylight.

The business men and financiers of the Pacific coast never forgot the lesson of Charles Klinkner and the

California Altamont Trust Company. Klinkner was the president. In partnership with Daylight, the pair raided

the San Jose Interurban. The powerful Lake Power Electric Lighting corporation came to the rescue, and

Klinkner, seeing what he thought was the opportunity, went over to the enemy in the thick of the pitched

battle. Daylight lost three millions before he was done with it, and before he was done with it he saw the

California Altamont Trust Company hopelessly wrecked, and Charles Klinkner a suicide in a felon's cell. Not

only did Daylight lose his grip on San Jose Interurban, but in the crash of his battle front he lost heavily all

along the line. It was conceded by those competent to judge that he could have compromised and saved

much. But, instead, he deliberately threw up the battle with San Jose Interurban and Lake Power, and,

apparently defeated, with Napoleonic suddenness struck at Klinkner. It was the last unexpected thing

Klinkner would have dreamed of, and Daylight knew it. He knew, further, that the California Altamont Trust

Company has an intrinsically sound institution, but that just then it was in a precarious condition due to

Klinkner's speculations with its money. He knew, also, that in a few months the Trust Company would be

more firmly on its feet than ever, thanks to those same speculations, and that if he were to strike he must

strike immediately. "It's just that much money in pocket and a whole lot more," he was reported to have said

in connection with his heavy losses. "It's just so much insurance against the future. Henceforth, men who go

in with me on deals will think twice before they try to doublecross me, and then some."

The reason for his savageness was that he despised the men with whom he played. He had a conviction that

not one in a hundred of them was intrinsically square; and as for the square ones, he prophesied that, playing

in a crooked game, they were sure to lose and in the long run go broke. His New York experience had opened

his eyes. He tore the veils of illusion from the business game, and saw its nakedness. He generalized upon

Society, as organized, was a vast bunco game. There were many hereditary inefficientsmen and women

who were not weak enough to be confined in feebleminded homes, but who were not strong enough to be

Then there were the fools who took the organized bunco game seriously, honoring and respecting it. They

were easy game for the others, who saw clearly and knew the bunco game for what it was.

Work, legitimate work, was the source of all wealth. That was to say, whether it was a sack of potatoes, a

grand piano, or a sevenpassenger touring car, it came into being only by the performance of work. Where

the bunco came in was in the distribution of these things after labor had created them. He failed to see the

hornyhanded sons of toil enjoying grand pianos or riding in automobiles. How this came about was

explained by the bunco. By tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands men sat up nights and schemed how

they could get between the workers and the things the workers produced. These schemers were the business

men. When they got between the worker and his product, they took a whack out of it for themselves The size

of the whack was determined by no rule of equity; but by their own strength and swinishness. It was always a

case of "all the traffic can bear." He saw all men in the business game doing this.

One day, in a mellow mood (induced by a string of cocktails and a hearty lunch), he started a conversation

with Jones, the elevator boy. Jones was a slender, mopheaded, mangrown, truculent flame of an individual

who seemed to go out of his way to insult his passengers. It was this that attracted Daylight's interest, and he

was not long in finding out what was the matter with Jones. He was a proletarian, according to his own

aggressive classification, and he had wanted to write for a living. Failing to win with the magazines, and

compelled to find himself in food and shelter, he had gone to the little valley of Petacha, not a hundred miles

from Los Angeles. Here, toiling in the daytime, he planned to write and study at night. But the railroad

charged all the traffic would bear. Petacha was a desert valley, and produced only three things: cattle,

firewood, and charcoal. For freight to Los Angeles on a carload of cattle the railroad charged eight dollars.

This, Jones explained, was due to the fact that the cattle had legs and could be driven to Los Angeles at a cost

equivalent to the charge per car load. But firewood had no legs, and the railroad charged just precisely

This was a fine adjustment, for by working hammerand tongs through a twelvehour day, after freight had

been deducted from the selling price of the wood in Los Angeles, the woodchopper received one dollar and

sixty cents. Jones had thought to get ahead of the game by turning his wood into charcoa. His estimates were

satisfactory. But the railroad also made estimates. It issued a rate of fortytwo dollars a car on charcoal. At

the end of three months, Jones went over his figures, and found that he was still making one dollar and sixty

"So I quit," Jones concluded. "I went hobbling for a year, and I got back at the railroads. Leaving out the little

things, I came across the Sierras in the summer and touched a match to the snowsheds. They only had a

"Son, ain't you afraid to be turning loose such information?" Daylight gravely demanded.

"Not on your life," quoth Jones. "They can't prove it. You could say I said so, and I could say I didn't say so,

all the traffic would bear. From top to bottom, that was the rule of the game; and what kept the game going

was the fact that a sucker was born every minute. If a Jones were born every minute, the game wouldn't last

But there were other and larger phases of the game. Little business men, shopkeepers, and such ilk took what

whack they could out of the product of the worker; but, after all, it was the large business men who formed

the workers through the little business men. When all was said and done, the latter, like Jones in Petacha

Valley, got no more than wages out of their whack. In truth, they were hired men for the large business men.

Still again, higher up, were the big fellows. They used vast and complicated paraphernalia for the purpose, on

a large scale of getting between hundreds of thousands of workers and their products. These men were not so

much mere robbers as gamblers. And, not content with their direct winnings, being essentially gamblers, they

raided one another. They called this feature of the game HIGH FINANCE. They were all engaged primarily

in robbing the worker, but every little while they formed combinations and robbed one another of the

accumulated loot. This explained the fiftythousanddollar raid on him by Holdsworthy and the

tenmilliondollar raid on him by Dowsett, Letton, and Guggenhammer. And when he raided Panama Mail

he had done exactly the same thing. Well, he concluded, it was finer sport robbing the robbers than robbing

Thus, all unread in philosophy, Daylight preempted for himself the position and vocation of a

twentiethcentury superman. He found, with rare and mythical exceptions, that there was no noblesse oblige

among the business and financial supermen. As a clever traveler had announced in an afterdinner speech at

the AltaPacific, "There was honor amongst thieves, and this was what distinguished thieves from honest

men." That was it. It hit the nail on the head. These modern supermen were a lot of sordid banditti who had

the successful effrontery to preach a code of right and wrong to their victims which they themselves did not

practise. With them, a man's word was good just as long as he was compelled to keep it. THOU SHALT

NOT STEAL was only applicable to the honest worker. They, the supermen, were above such

commandments. They certainly stole and were honored by their fellows according to the magnitude of their

The more Daylight played the game, the clearer the situation grew. Despite the fact that every robber was

keen to rob every other robber, the band was well organized. It practically controlled the political machinery

of society, from the ward politician up to the Senate of the United States. It passed laws that gave it privilege

to rob. It enforced these laws by means of the police, the marshals, the militia and regular army, and the

courts. And it was a snap. A superman's chiefest danger was his fellowsuperman. The great stupid mass of

the people did not count. They were constituted of such inferior clay that the veriest chicanery fooled them.

The superman manipulated the strings, and when robbery of the workers became too slow or monotonous,

Daylight was philosophical, but not a philosopher. He had never read the books. He was a hardheaded,

practical man, and farthest from him was any intention of ever reading the books. He had lived life in the

simple, where books were not necessary for an understanding of life, and now life in the complex appeared

just as simple. He saw through its frauds and fictions, and found it as elemental as on the Yukon. Men were

made of the same stuff. They had the same passions and desires. Finance was poker on a larger scale. The

men who played were the men who had stakes. The workers were the fellows toiling for grubstakes. He saw

the game played out according to the everlasting rules, and he played a hand himself. The gigantic futility of

humanity organized and befuddled by the bandits did not shock him. It was the natural order. Practically all

human endeavors were futile. He had seen so much of it. His partners had starved and died on the Stewart.

Hundreds of oldtimers had failed to locate on Bonanza and Eldorado, while Swedes and chechaquos had

come in on the moosepasture and blindly staked millions. It was life, and life was a savage proposition at

best. Men in civilization robbed because they were so made. They robbed just as cats scratched, famine

So it was that Daylight became a successful financier. He did not go in for swindling the workers. Not only

did he not have the heart for it, but it did not strike him as a sporting proposition. The workers were so easy,

so stupid. It was more like slaughtering fat handreared pheasants on the English preserves he had heard

about. The sport to him, was in waylaying the successful robbers and taking their spoils from them. There

was fun and excitement in that, and sometimes they put up the very devil of a fight. Like Robin Hood of old,

Daylight proceeded to rob the rich; and, in a small way, to distribute to the needy.

But he was charitable after his own fashion. The great mass of human misery meant nothing to him. That was

part of the everlasting order. He had no patience with the organized charities and the professional charity

mongers. Nor, on the other hand, was what he gave a conscience dole. He owed no man, and restitution was

unthinkable. What he gave was a largess, a free, spontaneous gift; and it was for those about him. He never

contributed to an earthquake fund in Japan nor to an openair fund in New York City. Instead, he financed

Jones, the elevator boy, for a year that he might write a book. When he learned that the wife of his waiter at

the St. Francis was suffering from tuberculosis, he sent her to Arizona, and later, when her case was declared

hopeless, he sent the husband, too, to be with her to the end. Likewise, he bought a string of horsehair

bridles from a convict in a Western penitentiary, who spread the good news until it seemed to Daylight that

half the convicts in that institution were making bridles for him. He bought them all, paying from twenty to

fifty dollars each for them. They were beautiful and honest things, and he decorated all the available

The grim Yukon life had failed to make Daylight hard. It required civilization to produce this result. In the

fierce, savage game he now played, his habitual geniality imperceptibly slipped away from him, as did his

lazy Western drawl. As his speech became sharp and nervous, so did his mental processes. In the swift rush

of the game he found less and less time to spend on being merely goodnatured. The change marked his face

The lines grew sterner. Less often appeared the playful curl of his lips, the smile in the wrinkling corners of

his eyes. The eyes themselves, black and flashing, like an Indian's, betrayed glints of cruelty and brutal

consciousness of power. His tremendous vitality remained, and radiated from all his being, but it was vitality

under the new aspect of the mantrampling manconqueror. His battles with elemental nature had been, in a

way, impersonal; his present battles were wholly with the males of his species, and the hardships of the trail,

the river, and the frost marred him far less than the bitter keenness of the struggle with his fellows.

He still had recrudescence of geniality, but they were largely periodical and forced, and they were usually due

to the cocktails he took prior to mealtime. In the North, he had drunk deeply and at irregular intervals; but

now his drinking became systematic and disciplined. It was an unconscious development, but it was based

upon physical and mental condition. The cocktails served as an inhibition. Without reasoning or thinking

about it, the strain of the office, which was essentially due to the daring and audacity of his ventures, required

check or cessation; and he found, through the weeks and months, that the cocktails supplied this very thing.

They constituted a stone wall. He never drank during the morning, nor in office hours; but the instant he left

the office he proceeded to rear this wall of alcoholic inhibition athwart his consciousness. The office became

immediately a closed affair. It ceased to exist. In the afternoon, after lunch, it lived again for one or two

hours, when, leaving it, he rebuilt the wall of inhibition. Of course, there were exceptions to this; and, such

was the rigor of his discipline, that if he had a dinner or a conference before him in which, in a business way,

he encountered enemies or allies and planned or prosecuted campaigns, he abstained from drinking. But the

instant the business was settled, his everlasting call went out for a Martini, and for a doubleMartini at that,

Into Daylight's life came Dede Mason. She came rather imperceptibly. He had accepted her impersonally

along with the office furnishing, the office boy, Morrison, the chief, confidential, and only clerk, and all the

rest of the accessories of a superman's gambling place of business. Had he been asked any time during the

first months she was in his employ, he would have been unable to tell the color of her eyes. From the fact that

she was a demiblonde, there resided dimly in his subconsciousness a conception that she was a brunette.

Likewise he had an idea that she was not thin, while there was an absence in his mind of any idea that she

was fat. As to how she dressed, he had no ideas at all. He had no trained eye in such matters, nor was he

interested. He took it for granted, in the lack of any impression to the contrary, that she was dressed some

how. He knew her as "Miss Mason," and that was all, though he was aware that as a stenographer she seemed

quick and accurate. This impression, however, was quite vague, for he had had no experience with other

One morning, signing up letters, he came upon an I shall. Glancing quickly over the page for similar

constructions, he found a number of I wills. The I shall was alone. It stood out conspicuously. He pressed the

callbell twice, and a moment later Dede Mason entered. "Did I say that, Miss Mason?" he asked, extending

the letter to her and pointing out the criminal phrase. A shade of annoyance crossed her face. She stood

"My mistake," she said. "I am sorry. But it's not a mistake, you know," she added quickly.

"How do you make that out?" challenged Daylight. "It sure don't sound right, in my way of thinking."

She had reached the door by this time, and now turned the offending letter in her hand. "It's right just the

"I shall be over to look that affair up on Monday." Daylight repeated the sentence from the letter aloud. He

did it with a grave, serious air, listening intently to the sound of his own voice. He shook his head. "It don't

sound right, Miss Mason. It just don't sound right. Why, nobody writes to me that way. They all say I

It chanced that day that among the several men with whom he sat at luncheon was a young Englishman, a

mining engineer. Had it happened any other time it would have passed unnoticed, but, fresh from the tilt with

his stenographer, Daylight was struck immediately by the Englishman's I shall. Several times, in the course of

the meal, the phrase was repeated, and Daylight was certain there was no mistake about it.

After luncheon he cornered Macintosh, one of the members whom he knew to have been a college man,

"Look here, Bunny," Daylight demanded, "which is right, I shall be over to look that affair up on Monday, or

The exfootball captain debated painfully for a minute. "Blessed if I know," he confessed. "Which way do I

On the way back to the office, Daylight dropped into a bookstore and bought a grammar; and for a solid hour,

his feet up on the desk, he toiled through its pages. "Knock off my head with little apples if the girl ain't

right," he communed aloud at the end of the session. For the first time it struck him that there was something

about his stenographer. He had accepted her up to then, as a female creature and a bit of office furnishing.

But now, having demonstrated that she knew more grammar than did business men and college graduates,

she became an individual. She seemed to stand out in his consciousness as conspicuously as the I shall had

He managed to watch her leaving that afternoon, and he was aware for the first time that she was

wellformed, and that her manner of dress was satisfying. He knew none of the details of women's dress, and

he saw none of the details of her neat shirtwaist and wellcut tailor suit. He saw only the effect in a general,

sketchy way. She looked right. This was in the absence of anything wrong or out of the way.

"She's a trim little goodlooker," was his verdict, when the outer office door closed on her.

The next morning, dictating, he concluded that he liked the way she did her hair, though for the life of him he

could have given no description of it. The impression was pleasing, that was all.

She sat between him and the window, and he noted that her hair was light brown, with hints of golden bronze.

A pale sun, shining in, touched the golden bronze into smouldering fires that were very pleasing to behold.

In the midst of the letter he came to the construction which had caused the trouble the day before. He

Miss Mason gave a quick look up at him. The action was purely involuntary, and, in fact, had been half a

startle of surprise. The next instant her eyes had dropped again, and she sat waiting to go on with the

dictation. But in that moment of her glance Daylight had noted that her eyes were gray. He was later to learn

that at times there were golden lights in those same gray eyes; but he had seen enough, as it was, to surprise

him, for he became suddenly aware that he had always taken her for a brunette with brown eyes, as a matter

"You were right, after all," he confessed, with a sheepish grin that sat incongruously on his stern, Indianlike

Again he was rewarded by an upward glance and an acknowledging smile, and this time he verified the fact

"But it don't sound right, just the same," he complained. At this she laughed outright.

"I beg your pardon," she hastened to make amends, and then spoiled it by adding, "but you are so funny."

Daylight began to feel a slight awkwardness, and the sun would persist in setting her hair asmouldering.

"All right," he sighed"I shall meet you halfway in this propositiongot that?" And the dictation went on.

He discovered that in the intervals, when she had nothing to do, she read books and magazines, or worked on

Passing her desk, once, he picked up a volume of Kipling's poems and glanced bepuzzled through the pages.

Another time it was a book of Wells', The Wheels of Change. "What's it all about?" Daylight asked.

"Oh, it's just a novel, a lovestory." She stopped, but he still stood waiting, and she felt it incumbent to go on.

"It's about a little Cockney draper's assistant, who takes a vacation on his bicycle, and falls in with a young

girl very much above him. Her mother is a popular writer and all that. And the situation is very curious, and

"And he doesn't get her, and you've read all them pages, hundreds of them, to find that out?" Daylight

"But I sure get something out of that. It's business, and it's different. I get money out of it. What do you get

"Oh, well," he said, with easy masculine tolerance, "so long as you enjoy it. That's what counts, I suppose;

Despite his own superior point of view, he had an idea that she knew a lot, and he experienced a fleeting

feeling like that of a barbarian face to face with the evidence of some tremendous culture. To Daylight culture

was a worthless thing, and yet, somehow, he was vaguely troubled by a sense that there was more in culture

Again, on her desk, in passing, he noticed a book with which he was familiar. This time he did not stop, for

he had recognized the cover. It was a magazine correspondent's book on the Klondike, and he knew that he

and his photograph figured in it and he knew, also, of a certain sensational chapter concerned with a woman's

After that he did not talk with her again about books. He imagined what erroneous conclusions she had drawn

from that particular chapter, and it stung him the more in that they were undeserved. Of all unlikely things, to

have the reputation of being a ladykiller,he, Burning Daylight,and to have a woman kill herself out of

love for him. He felt that he was a most unfortunate man and wondered by what luck that one book of all the

thousands of books should have fallen into his stenographer's hands. For some days afterward he had an

uncomfortable sensation of guiltiness whenever he was in Miss Mason's presence; and once he was positive

that he caught her looking at him with a curious, intent gaze, as if studying what manner of man he was.

He pumped Morrison, the clerk, who had first to vent his personal grievance against Miss Mason before he

"She comes from Siskiyou County. She's very nice to work with in the office, of course, but she's rather stuck

"Well, she thinks too much of herself to associate with those she works with, in the office here, for instance.

She won't have anything to do with a fellow, you see. I've asked her out repeatedly, to the theatre and the

chutes and such things. But nothing doing. Says she likes plenty of sleep, and can't stay up late, and has to go

This phase of the report gave Daylight a distinct satisfaction. She was a bit above the ordinary, and no doubt

"But that's all hot air. She's running with the University boys, that's what she's doing. She needs lots of sleep

and can't go to the theatre with me, but she can dance all hours with them. I've heard it pretty straight that she

goes to all their hops and such things. Rather stylish and hightoned for a stenographer, I'd say. And she

keeps a horse, too. She rides astride all over those hills out there. I saw her one Sunday myself. Oh, she's a

highflyer, and I wonder how she does it. Sixtyfive a month don't go far. Then she has a sick brother, too."

"No; hasn't got any. They were well to do, I've heard. They must have been, or that brother of hers couldn't

have gone to the University of California. Her father had a big cattleranch, but he got to fooling with mines

or something, and went broke before he died. Her mother died long before that. Her brother must cost a lot of

money. He was a husky once, played football, was great on hunting and being out in the mountains and such

things. He got his accident breaking horses, and then rheumatism or something got into him. One leg is

shorter than the other and withered up some. He has to walk on crutches. I saw her out with him

oncecrossing the ferry. The doctors have been experimenting on him for years, and he's in the French

All of which sidelights on Miss Mason went to increase Daylight's interest in her. Yet, much as he desired,

he failed to get acquainted with her. He had thoughts of asking her to luncheon, but his was the innate

chivalry of the frontiersman, and the thoughts never came to anything. He knew a selfrespecting,

squaredealing man was not supposed to take his stenographer to luncheon. Such things did happen, he

knew, for he heard the chaffing gossip of the club; but he did not think much of such men and felt sorry for

the girls. He had a strange notion that a man had less rights over those he employed than over mere

acquaintances or strangers. Thus, had Miss Mason not been his employee, he was confident that he would

have had her to luncheon or the theatre in no time. But he felt that it was an imposition for an employer,

because he bought the time of an employee in working hours, to presume in any way upon any of the rest of

that employee's time. To do so was to act like a bully. The situation was unfair. It was taking advantage of the

fact that the employee was dependent on one for a livelihood. The employee might permit the imposition

through fear of angering the employer and not through any personal inclination at all.

In his own case he felt that such an imposition would be peculiarly obnoxious, for had she not read that

cursed Klondike correspondent's book? A pretty idea she must have of him, a girl that was too hightoned to

have anything to do with a goodlooking, gentlemanly fellow like Morrison. Also, and down under all his

other reasons, Daylight was timid. The only thing he had ever been afraid of in his life was woman, and he

had been afraid all his life. Nor was that timidity to be put easily to flight now that he felt the first glimmering

need and desire for woman. The specter of the apronstring still haunted him, and helped him to find excuses

Not being favored by chance in getting acquainted with Dede Mason, Daylight's interest in her slowly waned.

This was but natural, for he was plunged deep in hazardous operations, and the fascinations of the game and

the magnitude of it accounted for all the energy that even his magnificent organism could generate.

Such was his absorption that the pretty stenographer slowly and imperceptibly faded from the forefront of his

consciousness. Thus, the first faint spur, in the best sense, of his need for woman ceased to prod. So far as

Dede Mason was concerned, he possessed no more than a complacent feeling of satisfaction in that he had a

very nice stenographer. And, completely to put the quietus on any last lingering hopes he might have had of

her, he was in the thick of his spectacular and intensely bitter fight with the Coastwise Steam Navigation

Company, and the Hawaiian, Nicaraguan, and PacificMexican SteamshipCompany. He stirred up a bigger

muss than he had anticipated, and even he was astounded at the wide ramifications of the struggle and at the

unexpected and incongruous interests that were drawn into it. Every newspaper in San Francisco turned upon

him. It was true, one or two of them had first intimated that they were open to subsidization, but Daylight's

judgment was that the situation did not warrant such expenditure. Up to this time the press had been

amusingly tolerant and goodnaturedly sensational about him, but now he was to learn what virulent

scrupulousness an antagonized press was capable of. Every episode of his life was resurrected to serve as

foundations for malicious fabrications. Daylight was frankly amazed at the new interpretation put upon all he

had accomplished and the deeds he had done. From an Alaskan hero he was metamorphosed into an Alaskan

bully, liar, desperado, and all around "bad Man." Not content with this, lies upon lies, out of whole cloth,

were manufactured about him. He never replied, though once he went to the extent of disburdening his mind

to half a dozen reporters. "Do your damnedest," he told them. "Burning Daylight's bucked bigger things than

your dirty, lying sheets. And I don't blame you, boys... that is, not much. You can't help it. You've got to live.

There's a mighty lot of women in this world that make their living in similar fashion to yours, because they're

not able to do anything better. Somebody's got to do the dirty work, and it might as well be you.

The socialist press of the city jubilantly exploited this utterance, scattering it broadcast over San Francisco in

tens of thousands of paper dodgers. And the journalists, stung to the quick, retaliated with the only means in

their powerprinter's ink abuse. The attack became bitterer than ever. The whole affair sank to the deeper

deeps of rancor and savageness. The poor woman who had killed herself was dragged out of her grave and

paraded on thousands of reams of paper as a martyr and a victim to Daylight's ferocious brutality. Staid,

statistical articles were published, proving that he had made his start by robbing poor miners of their claims,

and that the capstone to his fortune had been put in place by his treacherous violation of faith with the

Guggenhammers in the deal on Ophir. And there were editorials written in which he was called an enemy of

society, possessed of the manners and culture of a caveman, a fomenter of wasteful business troubles, the

destroyer of the city's prosperity in commerce and trade, an anarchist of dire menace; and one editorial

gravely recommended that hanging would be a lesson to him and his ilk, and concluded with the fervent hope

He was like a big bear raiding a beehive and, regardless of the stings, he obstinately persisted in pawing for

the honey. He gritted his teeth and struck back. Beginning with a raid on two steamship companies, it

developed into a pitched battle with a city, a state, and a continental coastline. Very well; they wanted fight,

and they would get it. It was what he wanted, and he felt justified in having come down from the Klondike,

for here he was gambling at a bigger table than ever the Yukon had supplied. Allied with him, on a splendid

salary, with princely pickings thrown in, was a lawyer, Larry Hegan, a young Irishman with a reputation to

make, and whose peculiar genius had been unrecognized until Daylight picked up with him. Hegan had Celtic

imagination and daring, and to such degree that Daylight's cooler head was necessary as a check on his wilder

visions. Hegan's was a Napoleonic legal mind, without balance, and it was just this balance that Daylight

supplied. Alone, the Irishman was doomed to failure, but directed by Daylight, he was on the highroad to

fortune and recognition. Also, he was possessed of no more personal or civic conscience than Napoleon.

It was Hegan who guided Daylight through the intricacies of modern politics, labor organization, and

commercial and corporation law. It was Hegan, prolific of resource and suggestion, who opened Daylight's

eyes to undreamed possibilities in twentiethcentury warfare; and it was Daylight, rejecting, accepting, and

elaborating, who planned the campaigns and prosecuted them. With the Pacific coast from Peugeot Sound to

Panama, buzzing and humming, and with San Francisco furiously about his ears, the two big steamship

companies had all the appearance of winning. It looked as if Burning Daylight was being beaten slowly to his

knees. And then he struckat the steamship companies, at San Francisco, at the whole Pacific coast.

It was not much of a blow at first. A Christian Endeavor convention being held in San Francisco, a row was

started by Express Drivers' Union No. 927 over the handling of a small heap of baggage at the Ferry

Building. A few heads were broken, a score of arrests made, and the baggage was delivered. No one would

have guessed that behind this petty wrangle was the fine Irish hand of Hegan, made potent by the Klondike

gold of Burning Daylight. It was an insignificant affair at bestor so it seemed. But the Teamsters' Union

took up the quarrel, backed by the whole Water Front Federation. Step by step, the strike became involved. A

refusal of cooks and waiters to serve scab teamsters or teamsters' employers brought out the cooks and

waiters. The butchers and meatcutters refused to handle meat destined for unfair restaurants. The combined

Employers' Associations put up a solid front, and found facing them the 40,000 organized laborers of San

Francisco. The restaurant bakers and the bakery wagon drivers struck, followed by the milkers, milk drivers,

and chicken pickers. The building trades asserted its position in unambiguous terms, and all San Francisco

But still, it was only San Francisco. Hegan's intrigues were masterly, and Daylight's campaign steadily

developed. The powerful fighting organization known as the Pacific Slope Seaman's Union refused to work

vessels the cargoes of which were to be handled by scab longshoremen and freighthandlers. The union

presented its ultimatum, and then called a strike. This had been Daylight's objective all the time. Every

incoming coastwise vessel was boarded by the union officials and its crew sent ashore. And with the Seamen

went the firemen, the engineers, and the sea cooks and waiters. Daily the number of idle steamers increased.

It was impossible to get scab crews, for the men of the Seaman's Union were fighters trained in the hard

school of the sea, and when they went out it meant blood and death to scabs. This phase of the strike spread

up and down the entire Pacific coast, until all the ports were filled with idle ships, and sea transportation was

at a standstill. The days and weeks dragged out, and the strike held. The Coastwise Steam Navigation

Company, and the Hawaiian, Nicaraguan, and PacificMexican Steamship Company were tied up

completely. The expenses of combating the strike were tremendous, and they were earning nothing, while

daily the situation went from bad to worse, until "peace at any price" became the cry. And still there was no

peace, until Daylight and his allies played out their hand, raked in the winnings, and allowed a goodly portion

It was noted, in following years, that several leaders of workmen built themselves houses and blocks of

renting flats and took trips to the old countries, while, more immediately, other leaders and "dark horses"

came to political preferment and the control of the municipal government and the municipal moneys. In fact,

San Francisco's bossridden condition was due in greater degree to Daylight's widespreading battle than even

San Francisco ever dreamed. For the part he had played, the details of which were practically all rumor and

guesswork, quickly leaked out, and in consequence he became a muchexecrated and wellhated man. Nor

had Daylight himself dreamed that his raid on the steamship companies would have grown to such colossal

But he had got what he was after. He had played an exciting hand and won, beating the steamship companies

down into the dust and mercilessly robbing the stockholders by perfectly legal methods before he let go. Of

course, in addition to the large sums of money he had paid over, his allies had rewarded themselves by

gobbling the advantages which later enabled them to loot the city. His alliance with a gang of cutthroats had

brought about a lot of cutthroating. But his conscience suffered no twinges. He remembered what he had once

heard an old preacher utter, namely, that they who rose by the sword perished by the sword. One took his

chances when he played with cutting throats, and his, Daylight's, throat was still intact. That was it! And he

had won. It was all gamble and war between the strong men. The fools did not count. They were always

getting hurt; and that they always had been getting hurt was the conclusion he drew from what little he knew

of history. San Francisco had wanted war, and he had given it war. It was the game. All the big fellows did

"Don't talk to me about morality and civic duty," he replied to a persistent interviewer. "If you quit your job

tomorrow and went to work on another paper, you would write just what you were told to write. It's morality

and civic duty now with you; on the new job it would be backing up a thieving railroad with... morality and

civic duty, I suppose. Your price, my son, is just about thirty per week. That's what you sell for. But your

paper would sell for a bit more. Pay its price today, and it would shift its present rotten policy to some other

"And all because a sucker is born every minute. So long as the people stand for it, they'll get it good and

plenty, my son. And the shareholders and business interests might as well shut up squawking about how

much they've been hurt. You never hear ary squeal out of them when they've got the other fellow down and

are gouging him. This is the time THEY got gouged, and that's all there is to it. Talk about mollycoddles!

Son, those same fellows would steal crusts from starving men and pull gold fillings from the mouths of

corpses, yep, and squawk like Sam Scratch if some blamed corpse hit back. They're all tarred with the same

brush, little and big. Look at your Sugar Trustwith all its millions stealing water like a common thief from

New York City, and shortweighing the government on its phoney scales. Morality and civic duty! Son,

Daylight's coming to civilization had not improved him. True, he wore better clothes, had learned slightly

better manners, and spoke better English. As a gambler and a mantrampler he had developed remarkable

efficiency. Also, he had become used to a higher standard of living, and he had whetted his wits to razor

sharpness in the fierce, complicated struggle of fighting males. But he had hardened, and at the expense of his

oldtime, wholesouled geniality. Of the essential refinements of civilization he knew nothing. He did not

know they existed. He had become cynical, bitter, and brutal. Power had its effect on him that it had on all

men. Suspicious of the big exploiters, despising the fools of the exploited herd, he had faith only in himself.

This led to an undue and erroneous exaltation of his ego, while kindly consideration of othersnay, even

simple respectwas destroyed, until naught was left for him but to worship at the shrine of self. Physically,

he was not the man of iron muscles who had come down out of the Arctic. He did not exercise sufficiently,

ate more than was good for him, and drank altogether too much. His muscles were getting flabby, and his

tailor called attention to his increasing waistband. In fact, Daylight was developing a definite paunch. This

physical deterioration was manifest likewise in his face. The lean Indian visage was suffering a city change.

The slight hollows in the cheeks under the high cheekbones had filled out. The beginning of puffsacks

under the eyes was faintly visible. The girth of the neck had increased, and the first crease and fold of a

double chin were becoming plainly discernible. The old effect of asceticism, bred of terrific hardships and

toil, had vanished; the features had become broader and heavier, betraying all the stigmata of the life he lived,

Even his human affiliations were descending. Playing a lone hand, contemptuous of most of the men with

whom he played, lacking in sympathy or understanding of them, and certainly independent of them, he found

little in common with those to be encountered, say at the AltaPacific. In point of fact, when the battle with

the steamship companies was at its height and his raid was inflicting incalculable damage on all business

interests, he had been asked to resign from the AltaPacific. The idea had been rather to his liking, and he

had found new quarters in clubs like the Riverside, organized and practically maintained by the city bosses.

He found that he really liked such men better. They were more primitive and simple, and they did not put on

airs. They were honest buccaneers, frankly in the game for what they could get out of it, on the surface more

raw and savage, but at least not glossed over with oily or graceful hypocrisy. The AltaPacific had suggested

that his resignation be kept a private matter, and then had privily informed the newspapers. The latter had

made great capital out of the forced resignation, but Daylight had grinned and silently gone his way, though

registering a black mark against more than one club member who was destined to feel, in the days to come,

The stormcentre of a combined newspaper attack lasting for months, Daylight's character had been torn to

shreds. There was no fact in his history that had not been distorted into a criminality or a vice. This public

making of him over into an iniquitous monster had pretty well crushed any lingering hope he had of getting

acquainted with Dede Mason. He felt that there was no chance for her ever to look kindly on a man of his

caliber, and, beyond increasing her salary to seventyfive dollars a month, he proceeded gradually to forget

about her. The increase was made known to her through Morrison, and later she thanked Daylight, and that

One weekend, feeling heavy and depressed and tired of the city and its ways, he obeyed the impulse of a

whim that was later to play an important part in his life. The desire to get out of the city for a whiff of country

air and for a change of scene was the cause. Yet, to himself, he made the excuse of going to Glen Ellen for

the purpose of inspecting the brickyard with which Holdsworthy had goldbricked him.

He spent the night in the little country hotel, and on Sunday morning, astride a saddlehorse rented from the

Glen Ellen butcher, rode out of the village. The brickyard was close at hand on the flat beside the Sonoma

Creek. The kilns were visible among the trees, when he glanced to the left and caught sight of a cluster of

wooded knolls half a mile away, perched on the rolling slopes of Sonoma Mountain. The mountain, itself

The dry, earlysummer air, shot through with sunshine, was wine to him. Unconsciously he drank it in deep

breaths. The prospect of the brickyard was uninviting. He was jaded with all things business, and the wooded

knolls were calling to him. A horse was between his legsa good horse, he decided; one that sent him back

to the cayuses he had ridden during his eastern Oregon boyhood. He had been somewhat of a rider in those

early days, and the champ of bit and creak of saddleleather sounded good to him now.

Resolving to have his fun first, and to look over the brickyard afterward, he rode on up the hill, prospecting

for a way across country to get to the knolls. He left the country road at the first gate he came to and cantered

through a hayfield. The grain was waisthigh on either side the wagon road, and he sniffed the warm aroma

of it with delighted nostrils. Larks flew up before him, and from everywhere came mellow notes. From the

appearance of the road it was patent that it had been used for hauling clay to the now idle brickyard. Salving

his conscience with the idea that this was part of the inspection, he rode on to the claypita huge scar in a

hillside. But he did not linger long, swinging off again to the left and leaving the road. Not a farmhouse was

in sight, and the change from the city crowding was essentially satisfying. He rode now through open woods,

across little flowerscattered glades, till he came upon a spring. Flat on the ground, he drank deeply of the

clear water, and, looking about him, felt with a shock the beauty of the world. It came to him like a discovery;

he had never realized it before, he concluded, and also, he had forgotten much. One could not sit in at high

finance and keep track of such things. As he drank in the air, the scene, and the distant song of larks, he felt

like a pokerplayer rising from a nightlong table and coming forth from the pent atmosphere to taste the

At the base of the knolls he encountered a tumbledown stakeandrider fence. From the look of it he judged

it must be forty years old at leastthe work of some first pioneer who had taken up the land when the days

of gold had ended. The woods were very thick here, yet fairly clear of underbrush, so that, while the blue sky

was screened by the arched branches, he was able to ride beneath. He now found himself in a nook of several

acres, where the oak and manzanita and madrono gave way to clusters of stately redwoods. Against the foot

of a steepsloped knoll he came upon a magnificent group of redwoods that seemed to have gathered about a

He halted his horse, for beside the spring uprose a wild California lily. It was a wonderful flower, growing

there in the cathedral nave of lofty trees. At least eight feet in height, its stem rose straight and slender, green

and bare for twothirds its length, and then burst into a shower of snowwhite waxen bells. There were

hundreds of these blossoms, all from the one stem, delicately poised and ethereally frail. Daylight had never

seen anything like it. Slowly his gaze wandered from it to all that was about him. He took off his hat, with

almost a vague religious feeling. This was different. No room for contempt and evil here. This was clean and

fresh and beautifulsomething he could respect. It was like a church. The atmosphere was one of holy calm.

Here man felt the prompting of nobler things. Much of this and more was in Daylight's heart as he looked

about him. But it was not a concept of his mind. He merely felt it without thinking about it at all.

On the steep incline above the spring grew tiny maidenhair ferns, while higher up were larger ferns and

brakes. Great, mosscovered trunks of fallen trees lay here and there, slowly sinking back and merging into

the level of the forest mould. Beyond, in a slightly clearer space, wild grape and honeysuckle swung in green

riot from gnarled old oak trees. A gray Douglas squirrel crept out on a branch and watched him. From

somewhere came the distant knocking of a woodpecker. This sound did not disturb the hush and awe of the

place. Quiet woods, noises belonged there and made the solitude complete. The tiny bubbling ripple of the

spring and the gray flash of treesquirrel were as yardsticks with which to measure the silence and

He tethered the horse and wandered on foot among the knolls. Their tops were crowned with centuryold

spruce trees, and their sides clothed with oaks and madronos and native holly. But to the perfect redwoods

belonged the small but deep canon that threaded its way among the knolls. Here he found no passage out for

his horse, and he returned to the lily beside the spring. On foot, tripping, stumbling, leading the animal, he

forced his way up the hillside. And ever the ferns carpeted the way of his feet, ever the forest climbed with

him and arched overhead, and ever the clean joy and sweetness stole in upon his senses.

On the crest he came through an amazing thicket of velvettrunked young madronos, and emerged on an

open hillside that led down into a tiny valley. The sunshine was at first dazzling in its brightness, and he

paused and rested, for he was panting from the exertion. Not of old had he known shortness of breath such as

this, and muscles that so easily tired at a stiff climb. A tiny stream ran down the tiny valley through a tiny

meadow that was carpeted kneehigh with grass and blue and white nemophila. The hillside was covered

with Mariposa lilies and wild hyacinth, down through which his horse dropped slowly, with circumspect feet

Crossing the stream, Daylight followed a faint cattle trail over a low, rocky hill and through a winewooded

forest of manzanita, and emerged upon another tiny valley, down which filtered another springfed,

meadowbordered streamlet. A jackrabbit bounded from a bush under his horse's nose, leaped the stream,

and vanished up the opposite hillside of scruboak. Daylight watched it admiringly as he rode on to the head

of the meadow. Here he startled up a manypronged buck, that seemed to soar across the meadow, and to

soar over the stakeandrider fence, and, still soaring, disappeared in a friendly copse beyond.

Daylight's delight was unbounded. It seemed to him that he had never been so happy. His old woods' training

was aroused, and he was keenly interested in everything in the moss on the trees and branches; in the bunches

of mistletoe hanging in the oaks; in the nest of a woodrat; in the watercress growing in the sheltered eddies

of the little stream; in the butterflies drifting through the rifted sunshine and shadow; in the blue jays that

flashed in splashes of gorgeous color across the forest aisles; in the tiny birds, like wrens, that hopped among

the bushes and imitated certain minor quailcalls; and in the crimsoncrested woodpecker that ceased its

knocking and cocked its head on one side to survey him. Crossing the stream, he struck faint vestiges of a

woodroad, used, evidently, a generation back, when the meadow had been cleared of its oaks. He found a

hawk's nest on the lightningshattered tipmost top of a sixfoot redwood. And to complete it all his horse

stumbled upon several large broods of halfgrown quail, and the air was filled with the thrum of their flight.

He halted and watched the young ones "petrifying" and disappearing on the ground before his eyes, and

"It sure beats country places and bungalows at Menlo Park," he communed aloud; "and if ever I get the

The old woodroad led him to a clearing, where a dozen acres of grapes grew on winered soil. A cowpath,

more trees and thickets, and he dropped down a hillside to the southeast exposure. Here, poised above a big

forested canon, and looking out upon Sonoma Valley, was a small farmhouse. With its barn and outhouses it

snuggled into a nook in the hillside, which protected it from west and north. It was the erosion from this

hillside, he judged, that had formed the little level stretch of vegetable garden. The soil was fat and black, and

Forgotten was the brickyard. Nobody was at home, but Daylight dismounted and ranged the vegetable

garden, eating strawberries and green peas, inspecting the old adobe barn and the rusty plough and harrow,

and rolling and smoking cigarettes while he watched the antics of several broods of young chickens and the

mother hens. A foottrail that led down the wall of the big canyon invited him, and he proceeded to follow it.

A waterpipe, usually above ground, paralleled the trail, which he concluded led upstream to the bed of the

creek. The wall of the canon was several hundred feet from top to bottom, and magnificent were the

untouched trees that the place was plunged in perpetual shade. He measured with his eye spruces five and six

feet in diameter and redwoods even larger. One such he passed, a twister that was at least ten or eleven feet

through. The trail led straight to a small dam where was the intake for the pipe that watered the vegetable

garden. Here, beside the stream, were alders and laurel trees, and he walked through fernbrakes higher than

his head. Velvety moss was everywhere, out of which grew maidenhair and goldback ferns.

Save for the dam, it was a virgin wild. No ax had invaded, and the trees died only of old age and stress of

winter storm. The huge trunks of those that had fallen lay mosscovered, slowly resolving back into the soil

from which they sprang. Some had lain so long that they were quite gone, though their faint outlines, level

with the mould, could still be seen. Others bridged the stream, and from beneath the bulk of one monster half

a dozen younger trees, overthrown and crushed by the fall, growing out along the ground, still lived and

prospered, their roots bathed by the stream, their upshooting branches catching the sunlight through the gap

Back at the farmhouse, Daylight mounted and rode on away from the ranch and into the wilder canons and

steeper steeps beyond. Nothing could satisfy his holiday spirit now but the ascent of Sonoma Mountain. And

here on the crest, three hours afterward, he emerged, tired and sweaty, garments torn and face and hands

scratched, but with sparkling eyes and an unwonted zestfulness of expression. He felt the illicit pleasure of a

schoolboy playing truant. The big gambling table of San Francisco seemed very far away. But there was more

than illicit pleasure in his mood. It was as though he were going through a sort of cleansing bath. No room

here for all the sordidness, meanness, and viciousness that filled the dirty pool of city existence. Without

pondering in detail upon the matter at all, his sensations were of purification and uplift. Had he been asked to

state how he felt, he would merely have said that he was having a good time; for he was unaware in his

selfconsciousness of the potent charm of nature that was percolating through his cityrotted body and

brainpotent, in that he came of an abysmal past of wilderness dwellers, while he was himself coated with

There were no houses in the summit of Sonoma Mountain, and, all alone under the azure California sky, he

reined in on the southern edge of the peak. He saw open pasture country, intersected with wooded canons,

descending to the south and west from his feet, crease on crease and roll on roll, from lower level to lower

level, to the floor of Petaluma Valley, flat as a billiardtable, a cardboard affair, all patches and squares of

geometrical regularity where the fat freeholds were farmed. Beyond, to the west, rose range on range of

mountains cuddling purple mists of atmosphere in their valleys; and still beyond, over the last range of all, he

saw the silver sheen of the Pacific. Swinging his horse, he surveyed the west and north, from Santa Rosa to

St. Helena, and on to the east, across Sonoma to the chaparralcovered range that shut off the view of Napa

Valley. Here, part way up the eastern wall of Sonoma Valley, in range of a line intersecting the little village

of Glen Ellen, he made out a scar upon a hillside. His first thought was that it was the dump of a mine tunnel,

but remembering that he was not in goldbearing country, he dismissed the scar from his mind and continued

the circle of his survey to the southeast, where, across the waters of San Pablo Bay, he could see, sharp and

distant, the twin peaks of Mount Diablo. To the south was Mount Tamalpais, and, yes, he was right, fifty

miles away, where the draughty winds of the Pacific blew in the Golden Gate, the smoke of San Francisco

He was loath to depart, and it was not for an hour that he was able to tear himself away and take the descent

of the mountain. Working out a new route just for the fun of it, late afternoon was upon him when he arrived

back at the wooded knolls. Here, on the top of one of them, his keen eyes caught a glimpse of a shade of

green sharply differentiated from any he had seen all day. Studying it for a minute, he concluded that it was

composed of three cypress trees, and he knew that nothing else than the hand of man could have planted them

there. Impelled by curiosity purely boyish, he made up his mind to investigate. So densely wooded was the

knoll, and so steep, that he had to dismount and go up on foot, at times even on hands and knees struggling

hard to force a way through the thicker underbrush. He came out abruptly upon the cypresses. They were

enclosed in a small square of ancient fence; the pickets he could plainly see had been hewn and sharpened by

hand. Inside were the mounds of two children's graves. Two wooden headboards, likewise handhewn, told

the state Little David, born 1855, died 1859; and Little Roy, born 1853, died 1860.

"The poor little kids," Daylight muttered. The graves showed signs of recent care. Withered bouquets of wild

flowers were on the mounds, and the lettering on the headboards was freshly painted. Guided by these clews,

Daylight cast about for a trail, and found one leading down the side opposite to his ascent. Circling the base

of the knoll, he picked up with his horse and rode on to the farmhouse. Smoke was rising from the chimney

and he was quickly in conversation with a nervous, slender young man, who, he learned, was only a tenant on

the ranch. How large was it? A matter of one hundred and eighty acres, though it seemed much larger. This

was because it was so irregularly shaped. Yes, it included the claypit and all the knolls, and its boundary

"You see," the young man said, "it was so rough and broken that when they began to farm this country the

farmers bought in the good land to the edge of it. That's why its boundaries are all gouged and jagged."

"Oh, yes, he and his wife managed to scratch a living without working too hard. They didn't have to pay

much rent. Hillard, the owner, depended on the income from the claypit. Hillard was well off, and had big

ranches and vineyards down on the flat of the valley. The brickyard paid ten cents a cubic yard for the clay.

As for the rest of the ranch, the land was good in patches, where it was cleared, like the vegetable garden and

"You're not a farmer," Daylight said. The young man laughed and shook his head. "No; I'm a telegraph

operator. But the wife and I decided to take a two years' vacation, and... here we are But the time's about up.

Yes, there were about eleven acres in the vineyardwine grapes. The price was usually good. He grew most

of what they ate. If he owned the place, he'd clear a patch of land on the sidehill above the vineyard and

plant a small home orchard. The soil was good. There was plenty of pasturage all over the ranch, and there

were several cleared patches, amounting to about fifteen acres in all, where he grew as much mountain hay as

could be found. It sold for three to five dollars more a ton than the rankstalked valley hay.

Daylight listened, there came to him a sudden envy of this young fellow living right in the midst of all this

The young man smiled with a certain wistfulness. "Because we can't get ahead here..." (he hesitated an

instant), "and because there are added expenses coming. The rent, small as it is, counts; and besides, I'm not

strong enough to effectually farm the place. If I owned it, or if I were a real husky like you, I'd ask nothing

better. Nor would the wife." Again the wistful smile hovered on his face. "You see, we're country born, and

after bucking with cities for a few years, we kind of feel we like the country best. We've planned to get ahead,

The graves of the children? Yes, he had relettered them and hoed the weeds out. It had become the custom.

Whoever lived on the ranch did that. For years, the story ran, the father and mother had returned each

summer to the graves. But there had come a time when they came no more, and then old Hillard started the

custom. The scar across the valley? An old mine. It had never paid. The men had worked on it, off and on, for

years, for the indications had been good. But that was years and years ago. No paying mine had ever been

struck in the valley, though there had been no end of prospectholes put down and there had been a sort of

A fraillooking young woman came to the door to call the young man to supper. Daylight's first thought was

that city living had not agreed with her. And then he noted the slight tan and healthy glow that seemed added

to her face, and he decided that the country was the place for her. Declining an invitation to supper, he rode

on for Glen Ellen sitting slackkneed in the saddle and softly humming forgotten songs. He dropped down

the rough, winding road through covered pasture, with here and there thickets of manzanita and vistas of open

glades. He listened greedily to the quail calling, and laughed outright, once, in sheer joy, at a tiny chipmunk

that fled scolding up a bank, slipping on the crumbly surface and falling down, then dashing across the road

Daylight could not persuade himself to keep to the travelled roads that day, and another cut across country to

Glen Ellen brought him upon a canon that so blocked his way that he was glad to follow a friendly cowpath.

This led him to a small frame cabin. The doors and windows were open, and a cat was nursing a litter of

kittens in the doorway, but no one seemed at home. He descended the trail that evidently crossed the canon.

Part way down, he met an old man coming up through the sunset. In his hand he carried a pail of foamy milk.

He wore no hat, and in his face, framed with snowwhite hair and beard, was the ruddy glow and content of

the passing summer day. Daylight thought that he had never seen so contentedlooking a being.

"I don't know about that. I ain't loafed none. I walked across the Plains with an oxteam and fit Injuns in '51,

and I was a family man then with seven youngsters. I reckon I was as old then as you are now, or pretty nigh

The old man shifted the pail of milk and reflected. "That all depends," he said oracularly. "I ain't never been

lonely except when the old wife died. Some fellers are lonely in a crowd, and I'm one of them. That's the only

time I'm lonely, is when I go to 'Frisco. But I don't go no more, thank you 'most to death. This is good enough

for me. I've ben right here in this valley since '54one of the first settlers after the Spaniards."

"Well, good night, daddy. Stick with it. You got all the young bloods skinned, and I guess you've sure buried

The old man chuckled, and Daylight rode on, singularly at peace with himself and all the world. It seemed

that the old contentment of trail and camp he had known on the Yukon had come back to him. He could not

shake from his eyes the picture of the old pioneer coming up the trail through the sunset light. He was

certainly going some for eightyfour. The thought of following his example entered Daylight's mind, but the

"Well, anyway," he decided, "when I get old and quit the game, I'll settle down in a place something like this,

Instead of returning to the city on Monday, Daylight rented the butcher's horse for another day and crossed

the bed of the valley to its eastern hills to look at the mine. It was dryer and rockier here than where he had

been the day before, and the ascending slopes supported mainly chaparral, scrubby and dense and impossible

to penetrate on horseback. But in the canyons water was plentiful and also a luxuriant forest growth. The

mine was an abandoned affair, but he enjoyed the halfhour's scramble around. He had had experience in

quartzmining before he went to Alaska, and he enjoyed the recrudescence of his old wisdom in such

matters. The story was simple to him: good prospects that warranted the starting of the tunnel into the

sidehill; the three months' work and the getting short of money; the layoff while the men went away and got

jobs; then the return and a new stretch of work, with the "pay" ever luring and ever receding into the

mountain, until, after years of hope, the men had given up and vanished. Most likely they were dead by now,

Daylight thought, as he turned in the saddle and looked back across the canyon at the ancient dump and dark

As on the previous day, just for the joy of it, he followed cattletrails at haphazard and worked his way up

toward the summits. Coming out on a wagon road that led upward, he followed it for several miles, emerging

in a small, mountainencircled valley, where half a dozen poor ranchers farmed the winegrapes on the steep

slopes. Beyond, the road pitched upward. Dense chaparral covered the exposed hillsides but in the creases of

Half an hour later, sheltering under the summits themselves, he came out on a clearing. Here and there, in

irregular patches where the steep and the soil favored, wine grapes were growing. Daylight could see that it

had been a stiff struggle, and that wild nature showed fresh signs of winningchaparral that had invaded the

clearings; patches and parts of patches of vineyard, unpruned, grassgrown, and abandoned; and everywhere

old stakeandrider fences vainly striving to remain intact. Here, at a small farmhouse surrounded by large

He came upon an old woman forking manure in the barnyard, and reined in by the fence.

"Hello, mother," was his greeting; "ain't you got any menfolk around to do that for you?"

She leaned on her pitchfork, hitched her skirt in at the waist, and regarded him cheerfully. He saw that her

toilworn, weatherexposed hands were like a man's, callused, largeknuckled, and gnarled, and that her

"Nary a man," she answered. "And where be you from, and all the way up here? Won't you stop and hitch and

Striding clumsily but efficiently, like a laboringman, she led him into the largest building, where Daylight

saw a handpress and all the paraphernalia on a small scale for the making of wine. It was too far and too bad

a road to haul the grapes to the valley wineries, she explained, and so they were compelled to do it

themselves. "They," he learned, were she and her daughter, the latter a widow of fortyodd. It had been easier

before the grandson died and before he went away to fight savages in the Philippines. He had died out there

Daylight drank a full tumbler of excellent Riesling, talked a few minutes, and accounted for a second

tumbler. Yes, they just managed not to starve. Her husband and she had taken up this government land in '57

and cleared it and farmed it ever since, until he died, when she had carried it on. It actually didn't pay for the

toil, but what were they to do? There was the wine trust, and wine was down. That Riesling? She delivered it

to the railroad down in the valley for twentytwo cents a gallon. And it was a long haul. It took a day for the

Daylight knew that in the hotels, Riesling, not quite so good even, was charged for at from a dollar and a half

to two dollars a quart. And she got twentytwo cents a gallon. That was the game. She was one of the stupid

lowly, she and her people before herthe ones that did the work, drove their oxen across the Plains, cleared

and broke the virgin land, toiled all days and all hours, paid their taxes, and sent their sons and grandsons out

to fight and die for the flag that gave them such ample protection that they were able to sell their wine for

twentytwo cents. The same wine was served to him at the St. Francis for two dollars a quart, or eight dollars

Between her and her handpress on the mountain clearing and him ordering his wine in the hotel was a

difference of seven dollars and seventyeight cents. A clique of sleek men in the city got between her and

him to just about that amount. And, besides them, there was a horde of others that took their whack. They

called it railroading, high finance, banking, wholesaling, real estate, and such things, but the point was that

they got it, while she got what was left,twentytwo cents. Oh, well, a sucker was born every minute, he

sighed to himself, and nobody was to blame; it was all a game, and only a few could win, but it was damned

"Sense I was seven. I was bound out in Michigan state until I was womangrown. Then I married, and I

She looked at him, as though she chose to think his question facetious, and did not reply.

"Then you get it all back," he assured her; but in his heart he was wondering about God, that allowed so many

suckers to be born and that did not break up the gambling game by which they were robbed from the cradle to

She ran her eyes over the casks and calculated. "Just short of eight hundred gallons."

He wondered what he could do with all of it, and speculated as to whom he could give it away.

"No; I mean it. And there's fifty to bind the bargain. Never mind the receipt. It's the rich ones that need

watching, their memories being so infernal short, you know. Here's my address. You've got to deliver it to the

On through the chaparral he went, following faint cattle. trails and working slowly upward till he came out on

the divide and gazed down into Napa Valley and back across to Sonoma Mountain... "A sweet land," he

Circling around to the right and dropping down along the cattletrails, he quested for another way back to

Sonoma Valley; but the cattletrails seemed to fade out, and the chaparral to grow thicker with a deliberate

viciousness and even when he won through in places, the canon and small feeders were too precipitous for his

horse, and turned him back. But there was no irritation about it. He enjoyed it all, for he was back at his old

game of bucking nature. Late in the afternoon he broke through, and followed a welldefined trail down a dry

canon. Here he got a fresh thrill. He had heard the baying of the hound some minutes before, and suddenly,

across the bare face of the hill above him, he saw a large buck in flight. And not far behind came the

deerhound, a magnificent animal. Daylight sat tense in his saddle and watched until they disappeared, his

breath just a trifle shorter, as if he, too, were in the chase, his nostrils distended, and in his bones the old

The dry canon gave place to one with a slender ribbon of running water. The trail ran into a woodroad, and

the woodroad emerged across a small flat upon a slightly travelled county road. There were no farms in this

immediate section, and no houses. The soil was meagre, the bedrock either close to the surface or

constituting the surface itself. Manzanita and scruboak, however, flourished and walled the road on either

side with a jungle growth. And out a runway through this growth a man suddenly scuttled in a way that

He was a little man, in patched overalls; bareheaded, with a cotton shirt open at the throat and down the chest.

The sun was ruddybrown in his face, and by it his sandy hair was bleached on the ends to peroxide blond.

He signed to Daylight to halt, and held up a letter. "If you're going to town, I'd be obliged if you mail this."

But the little man did not answer. He was gazing at Daylight in a surprised and steadfast fashion.

"I know you," the little man announced. "You're Elam HarnishBurning Daylight, the papers call you. Am I

Daylight grinned as he answered, "Drumming up trade for a free rural delivery route."

"Well, I'm glad I wrote that letter this afternoon," the little man went on, "or else I'd have missed seeing you.

I've seen your photo in the papers many a time, and I've a good memory for faces. I recognized you at once.

"Oh, yes. I've got a little shack back here in the bush a hundred yards, and a pretty spring, and a few fruit

trees and berry bushes. Come in and take a look. And that spring is a dandy. You never tasted water like it.

Walking and leading his horse, Daylight followed the quickstepping eager little man through the green

tunnel and emerged abruptly upon the clearing, if clearing it might be called, where wild nature and man's

earthscratching were inextricably blended. It was a tiny nook in the hills, protected by the steep walls of a

canon mouth. Here were several large oaks, evidencing a richer soil. The erosion of ages from the hillside had

slowly formed this deposit of fat earth. Under the oaks, almost buried in them, stood a rough, unpainted

cabin, the wide verandah of which, with chairs and hammocks, advertised an outof doors bedchamber.

Daylight's keen eyes took in every thing. The clearing was irregular, following the patches of the best soil,

and every fruit tree and berry bush, and even each vegetable plant, had the water personally conducted to it.

The tiny irrigation channels were every where, and along some of them the water was running.

"Handreared and manicured, every blessed tree," Daylight laughed, but the joy and satisfaction that shone in

"Why, d'ye know, I know every one of those trees as if they were sons of mine. I planted them, nursed them,

"It's sure a hummer," was Daylight's verdict, after due inspection and sampling, as they turned back for the

The interior was a surprise. The cooking being done in the small, leanto kitchen, the whole cabin formed a

large living room. A great table in the middle was comfortably littered with books and magazines. All the

available wall space, from floor to ceiling, was occupied by filled bookshelves. It seemed to Daylight that he

had never seen so many books assembled in one place. Skins of wildcat, 'coon, and deer lay about on the

The crowning feature of the room was a huge fireplace of rough stones and boulders.

"Built it myself," Ferguson proclaimed, "and, by God, she drew! Never a wisp of smoke anywhere save in the

Daylight found himself charmed and made curious by the little man. Why was he hiding away here in the

chaparral, he and his books? He was nobody's fool, anybody could see that. Then why? The whole affair had

a tinge of adventure, and Daylight accepted an invitation to supper, half prepared to find his host a

rawfruitandnuteater or some similar sort of health faddest. At table, while eating rice and jackrabbit

curry (the latter shot by Ferguson), they talked it over, and Daylight found the little man had no food "views."

He ate whatever he liked, and all he wanted, avoiding only such combinations that experience had taught him

Next, Daylight surmised that he might be touched with religion; but, quest about as he would, in a

conversation covering the most divergent topics, he could find no hint of queerness or unusualness. So it was,

when between them they had washed and wiped the dishes and put them away, and had settled down to a

"Look here, Ferguson. Ever since we got together, I've been casting about to find out what's wrong with you,

to locate a screw loose somewhere, but I'll be danged if I've succeeded. What are you doing here, anyway?

What made you come here? What were you doing for a living before you came here? Go ahead and elucidate

"First of all," he began, "the doctors wound up by losing all hope for me. Gave me a few months at best, and

that, after a course in sanatoriums and a trip to Europe and another to Hawaii. They tried electricity, and

I was a graduate of about everything in the curriculum. They kept me poor with their bills while I went from

bad to worse. The trouble with me was two fold: first, I was a born weakling; and next, I was living

unnaturallytoo much work, and responsibility, and strain. I was managing editor of the TimesTribune"

Daylight gasped mentally, for the TimesTribune was the biggest and most influential paper in San

"and I wasn't strong enough for the strain. Of course my body went back on me, and my mind, too, for that

matter. It had to be bolstered up with whiskey, which wasn't good for it any more than was the living in clubs

and hotels good for my stomach and the rest of me. That was what ailed me; I was living all wrong."

"When the doctors gave me up, I wound up my affairs and gave the doctors up. That was fifteen years ago. I'd

been hunting through here when I was a boy, on vacations from college, and when I was all down and out it

seemed a yearning came to me to go back to the country. So I quit, quit everything, absolutely, and came to

live in the Valley of the Moonthat's the Indian name, you know, for Sonoma Valley. I lived in the leanto

the first year; then I built the cabin and sent for my books. I never knew what happiness was before, nor

"Yet the day I came here I looked nearer sixty, and that was fifteen years ago."

They talked along, and Daylight looked at the world from new angles. Here was a man, neither bitter nor

cynical, who laughed at the citydwellers and called them lunatics; a man who did not care for money, and in

whom the lust for power had long since died. As for the friendship of the citydwellers, his host spoke in no

"What did they do, all the chaps I knew, the chaps in the clubs with whom I'd been cheek by jowl for heaven

knows how long? I was not beholden to them for anything, and when I slipped out there was not one of them

to drop me a line and say, 'How are you, old man? Anything I can do for you?' For several weeks it was:

'What's become of Ferguson?" After that I became a reminiscence and a memory. Yet every last one of them

"But what do you do now?" was Daylight's query. "You must need cash to buy clothes and magazines?"

"A week's work or a month's work, now and again, ploughing in the winter, or picking grapes in the fall, and

there's always odd jobs with the farmers through the summer. I don't need much, so I don't have to work

much. Most of my time I spend fooling around the place. I could do hack work for the magazines and

newspapers; but I prefer the ploughing and the grape picking. Just look at me and you can see why. I'm hard

as rocks. And I like the work. But I tell you a chap's got to break in to it. It's a great thing when he's learned to

pick grapes a whole long day and come home at the end of it with that tired happy feeling, instead of being in

a state of physical collapse. That fireplacethose big stonesI was soft, then, a little, anemic, alcoholic

degenerate, with the spunk of a rabbit and about one per cent as much stamina, and some of those big stones

nearly broke my back and my heart. But I persevered, and used my body in the way Nature intended it should

be usednot bending over a desk and swilling whiskey... and, well, here I am, a better man for it, and there's

"And now tell me about the Klondike, and how you turned San Francisco upside down with that last raid of

yours. You're a bonny fighter, you know, and you touch my imagination, though my cooler reason tells me

that you are a lunatic like the rest. The lust for power! It's a dreadful affliction. Why didn't you stay in your

Klondike? Or why don't you clear out and live a natural life, for instance, like mine? You see, I can ask

It was not until ten o'clock that Daylight parted from Ferguson. As he rode along through the starlight, the

idea came to him of buying the ranch on the other side of the valley. There was no thought in his mind of

ever intending to live on it. His game was in San Francisco. But he liked the ranch, and as soon as he got

back to the office he would open up negotiations with Hillard. Besides, the ranch included the claypit, and it

would give him the whiphand over Holdsworthy if he ever tried to cut up any didoes.

The time passed, and Daylight played on at the game. But the game had entered upon a new phase. The lust

for power in the mere gambling and winning was metamorphosing into the lust for power in order to revenge.

There were many men in San Francisco against whom he had registered black marks, and now and again,

with one of his lightning strokes, he erased such a mark. He asked no quarter; he gave no quarter. Men feared

and hated him, and no one loved him, except Larry Hegan, his lawyer, who would have laid down his life for

him. But he was the only man with whom Daylight was really intimate, though he was on terms of friendliest

camaraderie with the rough and unprincipled following of the bosses who ruled the Riverside Club.

On the other hand, San Francisco's attitude toward Daylight had undergone a change. While he, with his

slashing buccaneer methods, was a distinct menace to the more orthodox financial gamblers, he was

nevertheless so grave a menace that they were glad enough to leave him alone. He had already taught them

the excellence of letting a sleeping dog lie. Many of the men, who knew that they were in danger of his big

bearpaw when it reached out for the honey vats, even made efforts to placate him, to get on the friendly side

of him. The AltaPacific approached him confidentially with an offer of reinstatement, which he promptly

declined. He was after a number of men in that club, and, whenever opportunity offered, he reached out for

them and mangled them. Even the newspapers, with one or two blackmailing exceptions, ceased abusing him

and became respectful. In short, he was looked upon as a baldfaced grizzly from the Arctic wilds to whom it

was considered expedient to give the trail. At the time he raided the steamship companies, they had yapped at

him and worried him, the whole pack of them, only to have him whirl around and whip them in the fiercest

pitched battle San Francisco had ever known. Not easily forgotten was the Pacific Slope Seaman's strike and

the giving over of the municipal government to the labor bosses and grafters. The destruction of Charles

Klinkner and the California and Altamont Trust Company had been a warning. But it was an isolated case;

Daylight still engaged in daring speculations, as, for instance, at the impending outbreak of the

JapaneseRussian War, when, in the face of the experience and power of the shipping gamblers, he reached

out and clutched practically a monopoly of available steamercharters. There was scarcely a battered tramp

on the Seven Seas that was not his on time charter. As usual, his position was, "You've got to come and see

me"; which they did, and, to use another of his phrases, they "paid through the nose" for the privilege. And all

his venturing and fighting had now but one motive. Some day, as he confided to Hegan, when he'd made a

sufficient stake, he was going back to New York and knock the spots out of Messrs. Dowsett, Letton, and

Guggenhammer. He'd show them what an allaround general buzzsaw he was and what a mistake they'd

made ever to monkey with him. But he never lost his head, and he knew that he was not yet strong enough to

go into deathgrapples with those three early enemies. In the meantime the black marks against them

Dede Mason was still in the office. He had made no more overtures, discussed no more books and no more

grammar. He had no active interest in her, and she was to him a pleasant memory of what had never

happened, a joy, which, by his essential nature, he was barred from ever knowing. Yet, while his interest had

gone to sleep and his energy was consumed in the endless battles he waged, he knew every trick of the light

on her hair, every quick denote mannerism of movement, every line of her figure as expounded by her

tailormade gowns. Several times, six months or so apart, he had increased her salary, until now she was

receiving ninety dollars a month. Beyond this he dared not go, though he had got around it by making the

work easier. This he had accomplished after her return from a vacation, by retaining her substitute as an

assistant. Also, he had changed his office suite, so that now the two girls had a room by themselves.

His eye had become quite critical wherever Dede Mason was concerned. He had long since noted her pride of

carriage. It was unobtrusive, yet it was there. He decided, from the way she carried it, that she deemed her

body a thing to be proud of, to be cared for as a beautiful and valued possession. In this, and in the way she

carried her clothes, he compared her with her assistant, with the stenographers he encountered in other

offices, with the women he saw on the sidewalks. "She's sure well put up," he communed with himself; "and

she sure knows how to dress and carry it off without being stuck on herself and without laying it on thick."

The more he saw of her, and the more he thought he knew of her, the more unapproachable did she seem to

him. But since he had no intention of approaching her, this was anything but an unsatisfactory fact. He was

Daylight did not improve with the passing years. The life was not good for him. He was growing stout and

soft, and there was unwonted flabbiness in his muscles. The more he drank cocktails, the more he was

compelled to drink in order to get the desired result, the inhibitions that eased him down from the concert

pitch of his operations. And with this went wine, too, at meals, and the long drinks after dinner of Scotch and

soda at the Riverside. Then, too, his body suffered from lack of exercise; and, from lack of decent human

associations, his moral fibres were weakening. Never a man to hide anything, some of his escapades became

public, such as speeding, and of joyrides in his big red motorcar down to San Jose with companions

distinctly sportyincidents that were narrated as good fun and comically in the newspapers.

Nor was there anything to save him. Religion had passed him by. "A long time dead" was his epitome of that

phase of speculation. He was not interested in humanity. According to his roughhewn sociology, it was all a

gamble. God was a whimsical, abstract, mad thing called Luck. As to how one happened to be

bornwhether a sucker or a robberwas a gamble to begin with; Luck dealt out the cards, and the little

babies picked up the hands allotted them. Protest was vain. Those were their cards and they had to play them,

willynilly, hunchbacked or straight backed, crippled or cleanlimbed, addlepated or clear headed. There

was no fairness in it. The cards most picked up put them into the sucker class; the cards of a few enabled

them to become robbers. The playing of the cards was lifethe crowd of players, society.

The table was the earth, and the earth, in lumps and chunks, from loaves of bread to big red motorcars, was

It was hard on the stupid lowly, for they were coppered to lose from the start; but the more he saw of the

others, the apparent winners, the less it seemed to him that they had anything to brag about. They, too, were a

long time dead, and their living did not amount to much. It was a wild animal fight; the strong trampled the

weak, and the strong, he had already discovered,men like Dowsett, and Letton, and

Guggenhammer,were not necessarily the best. He remembered his miner comrades of the Arctic. They

were the stupid lowly, they did the hard work and were robbed of the fruit of their toil just as was the old

woman making wine in the Sonoma hills; and yet they had finer qualities of truth, and loyalty, and

squaredealing than did the men who robbed them. The winners seemed to be the crooked ones, the

unfaithful ones, the wicked ones. And even they had no say in the matter. They played the cards that were

given them; and Luck, the monstrous, madgod thing, the owner of the whole shebang, looked on and

There was no justice in the deal. The little men that came, the little pulpy babies, were not even asked if they

wanted to try a flutter at the game. They had no choice. Luck jerked them into life, slammed them up against

the jostling table, and told them: "Now play, damn you, play!" And they did their best, poor little devils. The

play of some led to steam yachts and mansions; of others, to the asylum or the pauper's ward. Some played

the one same card, over and over, and made wine all their days in the chaparral, hoping, at the end, to pull

down a set of false teeth and a coffin. Others quit the game early, having drawn cards that called for violent

death, or famine in the Barrens, or loathsome and lingering disease. The hands of some called for kingship

and irresponsible and numerated power; other hands called for ambition, for wealth in untold sums, for

As for himself, he had drawn a lucky hand, though he could not see all the cards. Somebody or something

might get him yet. The mad god, Luck, might be tricking him along to some such end. An unfortunate set of

circumstances, and in a month's time the robber gang might be wardancing around his financial carcass.

This very day a streetcar might run him down, or a sign fall from a building and smash in his skull. Or there

was disease, ever rampant, one of Luck's grimmest whims. Who could say? Tomorrow, or some other day, a

ptomaine bug, or some other of a thousand bugs, might jump out upon him and drag him down. There was

Doctor Bascom, Lee Bascom who had stood beside him a week ago and talked and argued, a picture of

magnificent youth, and strength, and health. And in three days he was deadpneumonia, rheumatism of the

heart, and heaven knew what elseat the end screaming in agony that could be heard a block away. That had

been terrible. It was a fresh, raw stroke in Daylight's consciousness. And when would his own turn come?

In the meantime there was nothing to do but play the cards he could see in his hand, and they were BATTLE,

One Sunday, late in the afternoon, found Daylight across the bay in the Piedmont hills back of Oakland. As

usual, he was in a big motorcar, though not his own, the guest of Swiftwater Bill, Luck's own darling, who

had come down to spend the cleanup of the seventh fortune wrung from the frozen Arctic gravel. A

notorious spender, his latest pile was already on the fair road to follow the previous six. He it was, in the first

year of Dawson, who had cracked an ocean of champagne at fifty dollars a quart; who, with the bottom of his

goldsack in sight, had cornered the eggmarket, at twentyfour dollars per dozen, to the tune of one

hundred and ten dozen, in order to pique the ladylove who had jilted him; and he it was, paying like a prince

for speed, who had chartered special trains and broken all records between San Francisco and New York.

And here he was once more, the "luckpup of hell," as Daylight called him, throwing his latest fortune away

It was a merry party, and they had made a merry day of it, circling the bay from San Francisco around by San

Jose and up to Oakland, having been thrice arrested for speeding, the third time, however, on the Haywards

stretch, running away with their captor. Fearing that a telephone message to arrest them had been flashed

ahead, they had turned into the backroad through the hills, and now, rushing in upon Oakland by a new

route, were boisterously discussing what disposition they should make of the constable.

"We'll come out at Blair Park in ten minutes," one of the men announced. "Look here, Swiftwater, there's a

crossroads right ahead, with lots of gates, but it'll take us backcountry clear into Berkeley. Then we can come

back into Oakland from the other side, sneak across on the ferry, and send the machine back around tonight

But Swiftwater Bill failed to see why he should not go into Oakland by way of Blair Park, and so decided.

The next moment, flying around a bend, the backroad they were not going to take appeared. Inside the gate

leaning out from her saddle and just closing it, was a young woman on a chestnut sorrel. With his first

glimpse, Daylight felt there was something strangely familiar about her. The next moment, straightening up

in the saddle with a movement he could not fail to identify, she put the horse into a gallop, riding away with

her back toward them. It was Dede Masonhe remembered what Morrison had told him about her keeping a

riding horse, and he was glad she had not seen him in this riotous company. Swiftwater Bill stood up,

clinging with one hand to the back of the front seat and waving the other to attract her attention. His lips were

pursed for the piercing whistle for which he was famous and which Daylight knew of old, when Daylight,

with a hook of his leg and a yank on the shoulder, slammed the startled Bill down into his seat.

"Well, I congratulate your good taste, Daylight. She's a peach, and she rides like one, too."

Intervening trees at that moment shut her from view, and Swiftwater Bill plunged into the problem of

disposing of their constable, while Daylight, leaning back with closed eyes, was still seeing Dede Mason

gallop off down the country road. Swiftwater Bill was right. She certainly could ride. And, sitting astride, her

seat was perfect. Good for Dede! That was an added point, her having the courage to ride in the only natural

On Monday morning, coming in for dictation, he looked at her with new interest, though he gave no sign of

it; and the stereotyped business passed off in the stereotyped way. But the following Sunday found him on a

horse himself, across the bay and riding through the Piedmont hills. He made a long day of it, but no glimpse

did he catch of Dede Mason, though he even took the backroad of many gates and rode on into Berkeley.

Here, along the lines of multitudinous houses, up one street and down another, he wondered which of them

might be occupied by her. Morrison had said long ago that she lived in Berkeley, and she had been headed

It had been a fruitless day, so far as she was concerned; and yet not entirely fruitless, for he had enjoyed the

open air and the horse under him to such purpose that, on Monday, his instructions were out to the dealers to

look for the best chestnut sorrel that money could buy. At odd times during the week he examined numbers

of chestnut sorrels, tried several, and was unsatisfied. It was not till Saturday that he came upon Bob.

Daylight knew him for what he wanted the moment he laid eyes on him. A large horse for a riding animal, he

was none too large for a big man like Daylight. In splendid condition, Bob's coat in the sunlight was a flame

"He's a sure winner," was Daylight's comment; but the dealer was not so sanguine. He was selling the horse

on commission, and its owner had insisted on Bob's true charactor being given. The dealer gave it.

"Not what you'd call a real vicious horse, but a dangerous one. Full of vinegar and allround cussedness, but

without malice. Just as soon kill you as not, but in a playful sort of way, you understand, without meaning to

at all. Personally, I wouldn't think of riding him. But he's a stayer. Look at them lungs. And look at them legs.

Not a blemish. He's never been hurt or worked. Nobody ever succeeded in taking it out of him. Mountain

horse, too, trailbroke and all that, being raised in rough country. Surefooted as a goat, so long as he don't

get it into his head to cut up. Don't shy. Ain't really afraid, but makes believe. Don't buck, but rears. Got to

ride him with a martingale. Has a bad trick of whirling around without cause It's his idea of a joke on his

rider. It's all just how he feels One day he'll ride along peaceable and pleasant for twenty miles.

Next day, before you get started, he's wellnigh unmanageable. Knows automobiles so he can lay down

alongside of one and sleep or eat hay out of it. He'll let nineteen go by without batting an eye, and mebbe the

twentieth, just because he's feeling frisky, he'll cut up over like a range cayuse. Generally speaking, too lively

for a gentleman, and too unexpected. Present owner nicknamed him Judas Iscariot, and refuses to sell without

the buyer knowing all about him first. There, that's about all I know, except look at that mane and tail. Ever

The dealer was right. Daylight examined the mane and found it finer than any horse's hair he had ever seen.

Also, its color was unusual in that it was almost auburn. While he ran his fingers through it, Bob turned his

"Saddle him up, and I'll try him," he told the dealer. "I wonder if he's used to spurs. No English saddle, mind.

Give me a good Mexican and a curb bitnot too severe, seeing as he likes to rear."

Daylight superintended the preparations, adjusting the curb strap and the stirrup length, and doing the

cinching. He shook his head at the martingale, but yielded to the dealer's advice and allowed it to go on. And

Bob, beyond spirited restlessness and a few playful attempts, gave no trouble. Nor in the hour's ride that

followed, save for some permissible curveting and prancing, did he misbehave. Daylight was delighted; the

purchase was immediately made; and Bob, with riding gear and personal equipment, was despatched across

the bay forthwith to take up his quarters in the stables of the Oakland Riding Academy.

The next day being Sunday, Daylight was away early, crossing on the ferry and taking with him Wolf, the

leader of his sled team, the one dog which he had selected to bring with him when he left Alaska. Quest as he

would through the Piedmont hills and along the manygated backroad to Berkeley, Daylight saw nothing of

Dede Mason and her chestnut sorrel. But he had little time for disappointment, for his own chestnut sorrel

kept him busy. Bob proved a handful of impishness and contrariety, and he tried out his rider as much as his

rider tried him out. All of Daylight's horse knowledge and horse sense was called into play, while Bob, in

turn, worked every trick in his lexicon. Discovering that his martingale had more slack in it than usual, he

proceeded to give an exhibition of rearing and hindleg walking. After ten hopeless minutes of it, Daylight

slipped off and tightened the martingale, whereupon Bob gave an exhibition of angelic goodness.

He fooled Daylight completely. At the end of half an hour of goodness, Daylight, lured into confidence, was

riding along at a walk and rolling a cigarette, with slack knees and relaxed seat, the reins lying on the animal's

neck. Bob whirled abruptly and with lightning swiftness, pivoting on his hind legs, his fore legs just lifted

clear of the ground. Daylight found himself with his right foot out of the stirrup and his arms around the

animal's neck; and Bob took advantage of the situation to bolt down the road. With a hope that he should not

encounter Dede Mason at that moment, Daylight regained his seat and checked in the horse.

Arrived back at the same spot, Bob whirled again. This time Daylight kept his seat, but, beyond a futile rein

across the neck, did nothing to prevent the evolution. He noted that Bob whirled to the right, and resolved to

keep him straightened out by a spur on the left. But so abrupt and swift was the whirl that warning and

"Well, Bob," he addressed the animal, at the same time wiping the sweat from his own eyes, "I'm free to

confess that you're sure the blamedest allfired quickest creature I ever saw. I guess the way to fix you is to

For, the moment the spur touched him, his left hind leg had reached forward in a kick that struck the stirrup a

smart blow. Several times, out of curiosity, Daylight attempted the spur, and each time Bob's hoof landed the

stirrup. Then Daylight, following the horse's example of the unexpected, suddenly drove both spurs into him

"You ain't never had a real licking before," he muttered as Bob, thus rudely jerked out of the circle of his own

Half a dozen times spurs and quirt bit into him, and then Daylight settled down to enjoy the mad magnificent

gallop. No longer punished, at the end of a half mile Bob eased down into a fast canter. Wolf, toiling in the

"I'll give you a few pointers on this whirling game, my boy," Daylight was saying to him, when Bob whirled.

He did it on a gallop, breaking the gallop off short by fore legs stiffly planted. Daylight fetched up against his

steed's neck with clasped arms, and at the same instant, with fore feet clear of the ground, Bob whirled

around. Only an excellent rider could have escaped being unhorsed, and as it was, Daylight was nastily near

to it. By the time he recovered his seat, Bob was in full career, bolting the way he had come, and making

"All right, darn you!" Daylight grunted, driving in spurs and quirt again and again. "Backtrack you want to

When, after a time, Bob attempted to ease down the mad pace, spurs and quirt went into him again with

undiminished vim and put him to renewed effort. And when, at last, Daylight decided that the horse had had

enough, he turned him around abruptly and put him into a gentle canter on the forward track. After a time he

Standing for a minute, Bob turned his head and nuzzled his rider's stirrup in a roguish, impatient way, as

"Well, I'll be plumb gosh darned!" was Daylight's comment. "No illwill, no grudge, no nothingand after

Once again Daylight was lulled into fancied security. For an hour Bob was all that could be desired of a

spirited mount, when, and as usual without warning, he took to whirling and bolting. Daylight put a stop to

this with spurs and quirt, running him several punishing miles in the direction of his bolt. But when he turned

him around and started forward, Bob proceeded to feign fright at trees, cows, bushes, Wolf, his own

shadowin short, at every ridiculously conceivable object. At such times, Wolf lay down in the shade and

So the day passed. Among other things, Bob developed a trick of making believe to whirl and not whirling.

This was as exasperating as the real thing, for each time Daylight was fooled into tightening his leg grip and

into a general muscular tensing of all his body. And then, after a few makebelieve attempts, Bob actually

did whirl and caught Daylight napping again and landed him in the old position with clasped arms around the

And to the end of the day, Bob continued to be up to one trick or another; after passing a dozen automobiles

on the way into Oakland, suddenly electing to go mad with fright at a most ordinary little runabout. And just

before he arrived back at the stable he capped the day with a combined whirling and rearing that broke the

martingale and enabled him to gain a perpendicular position on his hind legs. At this juncture a rotten stirrup

But he had taken a liking to the animal, and repented not of his bargain. He realized that Bob was not vicious

nor mean, the trouble being that he was bursting with high spirits and was endowed with more than the

average horse's intelligence. It was the spirits and the intelligence, combined with inordinate roguishness, that

made him what he was. What was required to control him was a strong hand, with tempered sternness and yet

"My, but ain't he a looker! Ever see anything like him? Best piece of horseflesh I ever straddled, and I've seen

"Goodby, you little bit of all right. See you again next Sunday A.M., and just you bring along your whole

Throughout the week Daylight found himself almost as much interested in Bob as in Dede; and, not being in

the thick of any big deals, he was probably more interested in both of them than in the business game. Bob's

trick of whirling was of especial moment to him. How to overcome it,that was the thing. Suppose he did

meet with Dede out in the hills; and suppose, by some lucky stroke of fate, he should manage to be riding

alongside of her; then that whirl of Bob's would be most disconcerting and embarrassing. He was not

particularly anxious for her to see him thrown forward on Bob's neck. On the other hand, suddenly to leave

her and go dashing down the backtrack, plying quirt and spurs, wouldn't do, either.

What was wanted was a method wherewith to prevent that lightning whirl. He must stop the animal before it

got around. The reins would not do this. Neither would the spurs. Remained the quirt.

But how to accomplish it? Absentminded moments were many that week, when, sitting in his office chair,

in fancy he was astride the wonderful chestnut sorrel and trying to prevent an anticipated whirl. One such

moment, toward the end of the week, occurred in the middle of a conference with Hegan. Hegan, elaborating

a new and dazzling legal vision, became aware that Daylight was not listening. His eyes had gone

"Got it" he cried suddenly. "Hegan, congratulate me. It's as simple as rolling off a log. All I've got to do is hit

Then he explained to the startled Hegan, and became a good listener again, though he could not refrain now

and again from making audible chuckles of satisfaction and delight. That was the scheme. Bob always

whirled to the right. Very well. He would double the quirt in his hand and, the instant of the whirl, that

doubled quirt would rap Bob on the nose. The horse didn't live, after it had once learned the lesson, that

More keenly than ever, during that week in the office did Daylight realize that he had no social, nor even

human contacts with Dede. The situation was such that he could not ask her the simple question whether or

not she was going riding next Sunday. It was a hardship of a new sort, this being the employer of a pretty girl.

He looked at her often, when the routine work of the day was going on, the question he could not ask her

tickling at the founts of speechWas she going riding next Sunday? And as he looked, he wondered how old

she was, and what love passages she had had, must have had, with those college whippersnappers with

whom, according to Morrison, she herded and danced. His mind was very full of her, those six days between

the Sundays, and one thing he came to know thoroughly well; he wanted her. And so much did he want her

that his old timidity of the apronstring was put to rout. He, who had run away from women most of his life,

had now grown so courageous as to pursue. Some Sunday, sooner or later, he would meet her outside the

office, somewhere in the hills, and then, if they did not get acquainted, it would be because she did not care to

How important that card was to become he did not dream, yet he decided that it was a pretty good card. In

turn, he doubted. Maybe it was a trick of Luck to bring calamity and disaster upon him. Suppose Dede

wouldn't have him, and suppose he went on loving her more and more, harder and harder? All his old

generalized terrors of love revived. He remembered the disastrous love affairs of men and women he had

known in the past. There was Bertha Doolittle, old Doolittle's daughter, who had been madly in love with

Dartworthy, the rich Bonanza fraction owner; and Dartworthy, in turn, not loving Bertha at all, but madly

loving Colonel Walthstone's wife and eloping down the Yukon with her; and Colonel Walthstone himself,

madly loving his own wife and lighting out in pursuit of the fleeing couple. And what had been the outcome?

Certainly Bertha's love had been unfortunate and tragic, and so had the love of the other three. Down below

Minook, Colonel Walthstone and Dartworthy had fought it out. Dartworthy had been killed. A bullet through

the Colonel's lungs had so weakened him that he died of pneumonia the following spring. And the Colonel's

And then there was Freda, drowning herself in the running mushice because of some man on the other side

of the world, and hating him, Daylight, because he had happened along and pulled her out of the mushice

and back to life. And the Virgin.... The old memories frightened him. If this lovegerm gripped him good and

hard, and if Dede wouldn't have him, it might be almost as bad as being gouged out of all he had by Dowsett,

Letton, and Guggenhammer. Had his nascent desire for Dede been less, he might well have been frightened

out of all thought of her. As it was, he found consolation in the thought that some love affairs did come out

right. And for all he knew, maybe Luck had stacked the cards for him to win. Some men were born lucky,

lived lucky all their days, and died lucky. Perhaps, too, he was such a man, a born luckpup who could not

Sunday came, and Bob, out in the Piedmont hills, behaved like an angel. His goodness, at times, was of the

spirited prancing order, but otherwise he was a lamb. Daylight, with doubled quirt ready in his right hand,

ached for a whirl, just one whirl, which Bob, with an excellence of conduct that was tantalizing, refused to

perform. But no Dede did Daylight encounter. He vainly circled about among the hill roads and in the

afternoon took the steep grade over the divide of the second range and dropped into Maraga Valley. Just after

passing the foot of the descent, he heard the hoof beats of a cantering horse. It was from ahead and coming

toward him. What if it were Dede? He turned Bob around and started to return at a walk. If it were Dede, he

was born to luck, he decided; for the meeting couldn't have occurred under better circumstances. Here they

were, both going in the same direction, and the canter would bring her up to him just where the stiff grade

would compel a walk. There would be nothing else for her to do than ride with him to the top of the divide;

and, once there, the equally stiff descent on the other side would compel more walking.

The canter came nearer, but he faced straight ahead until he heard the horse behind check to a walk. Then he

glanced over his shoulder. It was Dede. The recognition was quick, and, with her, accompanied by surprise.

What more natural thing than that, partly turning his horse, he should wait till she caught up with him; and

that, when abreast they should continue abreast on up the grade? He could have sighed with relief. The thing

was accomplished, and so easily. Greetings had been exchanged; here they were side by side and going in the

"Oh, what a beauty" she had cried at sight of Bob. From the shining light in her eyes, and the face filled with

delight, he would scarcely have believed that it belonged to a young woman he had known in the office, the

"I didn't know you rode," was one of her first remarks. "I imagined you were wedded to gettherequick

"I've just taken it up lately," was his answer. "Beginning to get stout; you know, and had to take it off

She gave a quick sidewise glance that embraced him from head to heel, including seat and saddle, and

She certainly had an eye for horses and things connected with horses was his thought, as he replied:

"Not for many years. But I used to think I was a regular ripsnorter when I was a youngster up in Eastern

Oregon, sneaking away from camp to ride with the cattle and break cayuses and that sort of thing."

Thus, and to his great relief, were they launched on a topic of mutual interest. He told her about Bob's tricks,

and of the whirl and his scheme to overcome it; and she agreed that horses had to be handled with a certain

rational severity, no matter how much one loved them. There was her Mab, which she had for eight years and

which she had had break of stallkicking. The process had been painful for Mab, but it had cured her.

"I really can't remember the first time I was on a horse," she told him. "I was born on a ranch, you know, and

they couldn't keep me away from the horses. I must have been born with the love for them. I had my first

pony, all my own, when I was six. When I was eight I knew what it was to be all day in the saddle along with

Daddy. By the time I was eleven he was taking me on my first deer hunts. I'd be lost without a horse. I hate

"You like the country?" he queried, at the same moment catching his first glimpse of a light in her eyes other

than gray. "As much as I detest the city," she answered. "But a woman can't earn a living in the country. So I

And thereat she told him more of her ranch life in the days before her father died. And Daylight was hugely

pleased with himself. They were getting acquainted. The conversation had not lagged in the full half hour

"We come pretty close from the same part of the country," he said. "I was raised in Eastern Oregon, and that's

"I don't know," he floundered temporarily. "I heard somewhere that you were from thereabouts."

Wolf, sliding up at that moment, sleekfooted and like a shadow, caused her horse to shy and passed the

awkwardness off, for they talked Alaskan dogs until the conversation drifted back to horses. And horses it

When she talked, he listened and followed her, and yet all the while he was following his own thoughts and

impressions as well. It was a nervy thing for her to do, this riding astride, and he didn't know, after all,

whether he liked it or not. His ideas of women were prone to be oldfashioned; they were the ones he had

imbibed in the earlyday, frontier life of his youth, when no woman was seen on anything but a sidesaddle.

He had grown up to the tacit fiction that women on horseback were not bipeds. It came to him with a shock,

this sight of her so manlike in her saddle. But he had to confess that the sight looked good to him just

Two other immediate things about her struck him. First, there were the golden spots in her eyes. Queer that

he had never noticed them before. Perhaps the light in the office had not been right, and perhaps they came

and went. No; they were glows of colora sort of diffused, golden light. Nor was it golden, either, but it was

nearer that than any color he knew. It certainly was not any shade of yellow. A lover's thoughts are ever

colored, and it is to be doubted if any one else in the world would have called Dede's eyes golden. But

Daylight's mood verged on the tender and melting, and he preferred to think of them as golden, and therefore

And then she was so natural. He had been prepared to find her a most difficult young woman to get

acquainted with. Yet here it was proving so simple. There was nothing highfalutin about her company

mannersit was by this homely phrase that he differentiated this Dede on horseback from the Dede with the

office manners whom he had always known. And yet, while he was delighted with the smoothness with

which everything was going, and with the fact that they had found plenty to talk about, he was aware of an irk

under it all. After all, this talk was empty and idle. He was a man of action, and he wanted her, Dede Mason,

the woman; he wanted her to love him and to be loved by him; and he wanted all this glorious consummation

then and there. Used to forcing issues used to gripping men and things and bending them to his will, he felt,

now, the same compulsive prod of mastery. He wanted to tell her that he loved her and that there was nothing

else for her to do but marry him. And yet he did not obey the prod. Women were fluttery creatures, and here

mere mastery would prove a bungle. He remembered all his hunting guile, the long patience of shooting meat

in famine when a hit or a miss meant life or death. Truly, though this girl did not yet mean quite that,

nevertheless she meant much to himmore, now, than ever, as he rode beside her, glancing at her as often as

he dared, she in her corduroy ridinghabit, so bravely manlike, yet so essentially and revealingly woman,

smiling, laughing, talking, her eyes sparkling, the flush of a day of sun and summer breeze warm in her

Another Sunday man and horse and dog roved the Piedmont hills. And again Daylight and Dede rode

together. But this time her surprise at meeting him was tinctured with suspicion; or rather, her surprise was of

another order. The previous Sunday had been quite accidental, but his appearing a second time among her

favorite haunts hinted of more than the fortuitous. Daylight was made to feel that she suspected him, and he,

remembering that he had seen a big rock quarry near Blair Park, stated offhand that he was thinking of

buying it. His onetime investment in a brickyard had put the idea into his headan idea that he decided was

a good one, for it enabled him to suggest that she ride along with him to inspect the quarry.

So several hours he spent in her company, in which she was much the same girl as before, natural, unaffected,

lighthearted, smiling and laughing, a good fellow, talking horses with unflagging enthusiasm, making friends

with the crustytempered Wolf, and expressing the desire to ride Bob, whom she declared she was more in

love with than ever. At this last Daylight demurred. Bob was full of dangerous tricks, and he wouldn't trust

"You think, because I'm a girl, that I don't know anything about horses," she flashed back. "But I've been

thrown off and bucked off enough not to be overconfident. And I'm not a fool. I wouldn't get on a bucking

horse. I've learned better. And I'm not afraid of any other kind. And you say yourself that Bob doesn't buck."

"But you must remember I've seen a few others, and I've been on several of them myself. I brought Mab here

to electric cars, locomotives, and automobiles. She was a raw range colt when she came to me. Broken to

Against his better judgment, Daylight gave in, and, on an unfrequented stretch of road, changed saddles and

She nodded, while Bob pricked up his ears to the knowledge that he had a strange rider on his back. The fun

came quickly enoughtoo quickly for Dede, who found herself against Bob's neck as he pivoted around and

bolted the other way. Daylight followed on her horse and watched. He saw her check the animal quickly to a

standstill, and immediately, with rein across neck and a decisive prod of the left spur, whirl him back the way

But, too quickly for her, Bob whirled again, though this time, by a severe effort, she saved herself from the

undignified position against his neck. His bolt was more determined, but she pulled him into a prancing walk,

and turned him roughly back with her spurred heel. There was nothing feminine in the way she handled him;

her method was imperative and masculine. Had this not been so, Daylight would have expected her to say she

had had enough. But that little preliminary exhibition had taught him something of Dede's quality. And if it

had not, a glance at her gray eyes, just perceptibly angry with herself, and at her firmset mouth, would have

told him the same thing. Daylight did not suggest anything, while he hung almost gleefully upon her actions

in anticipation of what the fractious Bob was going to get. And Bob got it, on his next whirl, or attempt,

rather, for he was no more than halfway around when the quirt met him smack on his tender nose. There and

then, in his bewilderment, surprise, and pain, his fore feet, just skimming above the road, dropped down.

"Great!" Daylight applauded. "A couple more will fix him. He's too smart not to know when he's beaten."

Again Bob tried. But this time he was barely quarter around when the doubled quirt on his nose compelled

him to drop his fore feet to the road. Then, with neither rein nor spur, but by the mere threat of the quirt, she

Daylight nodded, and she shot down the road. He watched her out of sight around the bend, and watched till

she came into sight returning. She certainly could sit her horse, was his thought, and she was a sure enough

hummer. God, she was the wife for a man! Made most of them look pretty slim. And to think of her

hammering all week at a typewriter. That was no place for her. She should be a man's wife, taking it easy,

with silks and satins and diamonds (his frontier notion of what befitted a wife beloved), and dogs, and horses,

and such things"And we'll see, Mr. Burning Daylight, what you and me can do about it," he murmured to

"You'll do, Miss Mason; you'll do. There's nothing too good in horseflesh you don't deserve, a woman who

can ride like that. No; stay with him, and we'll jog along to the quarry." He chuckled. "Say, he actually gave

just the least mite of a groan that last time you fetched him. Did you hear it? And did you see the way he

dropped his feet to the roadjust like he'd struck a stone wall. And he's got savvee enough to know from

now on that that same stone wall will be always there ready for him to lam into."

When he parted from her that afternoon, at the gate of the road that led to Berkeley, he drew off to the edge of

the intervening clump of trees, where, unobserved, he watched her out of sight. Then, turning to ride back

into Oakland, a thought came to him that made him grin ruefully as he muttered: "And now it's up to me to

make good and buy that blamed quarry. Nothing less than that can give me an excuse for snooping around

But the quarry was doomed to pass out of his plans for a time, for on the following Sunday he rode alone. No

Dede on a chestnut sorrel came across the backroad from Berkeley that day, nor the day a week later.

Daylight was beside himself with impatience and apprehension, though in the office he contained himself. He

noted no change in her, and strove to let none show in himself. The same old monotonous routine went on,

though now it was irritating and maddening. Daylight found a big quarrel on his hands with a world that

wouldn't let a man behave toward his stenographer after the way of all men and women. What was the good

of owning millions anyway? he demanded one day of the deskcalendar, as she passed out after receiving his

As the third week drew to a close and another desolate Sunday confronted him, Daylight resolved to speak,

office or no office. And as was his nature, he went simply and directly to the point She had finished her work

with him, and was gathering her note pad and pencils together to depart, when he said:

"Oh, one thing more, Miss Mason, and I hope you won't mind my being frank and straight out. You've struck

me right along as a sensibleminded girl, and I don't think you'll take offence at what I'm going to say. You

know how long you've been in the officeit's years, now, several of them, anyway; and you know I've

always been straight and aboveboard with you. I've never what you callpresumed. Because you were in my

office I've tried to be more careful than ifif you wasn't in my officeyou understand. But just the same, it

don't make me any the less human. I'm a lonely sort of a fellowdon't take that as a bid for kindness. What I

mean by it is to try and tell you just how much those two rides with you have meant. And now I hope you

won't mind my just asking why you haven't been out riding the last two Sundays?"

He came to a stop and waited, feeling very warm and awkward, the perspiration starting in tiny beads on his

forehead. She did not speak immediately, and he stepped across the room and raised the window higher.

"But why...?" He failed somehow to complete the question. "Go ahead and be frank with me," he urged. "Just

as frank as I am with you. Why didn't you ride in the Piedmont hills? I hunted for you everywhere.

"And that is just why." She smiled, and looked him straight in the eyes for a moment, then dropped her own.

"I do, and I don't. I ain't used to city ways by a long shot. There's things one mustn't do, which I don't mind as

"Then I do them." His lips had drawn firmly with this affirmation of will, but the next instant he was

amending the statement "That is, I mostly do. But what gets me is the things you mustn't do when they're not

She played nervously with a pencil for a time, as if debating her reply, while he waited patiently.

"This riding," she began; "it's not what they call the right thing. I leave it to you. You know the world. You

"You're a thousand times better than me" he attempted to interpolate, but was in turn interrupted.

"It isn't a question of such things. It's a simple and fairly common situation that must be considered. I work

for you. And it isn't what you or I might think, but what other persons will think. And you don't need to be

Her cool, matteroffact speech belied heror so Daylight thought, looking at her perturbed feminineness,

at the rounded lines of her figure, the breast that deeply rose and fell, and at the color that was now excited in

"I'm sorry I frightened you out of your favorite stamping ground," he said rather aimlessly.

"You didn't frighten me," she retorted, with a touch of fire. "I'm not a silly seminary girl. I've taken care of

myself for a long time now, and I've done it without being frightened. We were together two Sundays, and

I'm sure I wasn't frightened of Bob, or you. It isn't that. I have no fears of taking care of myself, but the world

insists on taking care of one as well. That's the trouble. It's what the world would have to say about me and

my employer meeting regularly and riding in the hills on Sundays. It's funny, but it's so. I could ride with one

"Which makes it worse, in a way, feeling guilty of nothing and yet sneaking around backroads with all the

feeling of doing something wrong. It would be finer and braver for me publicly..."

"To go to lunch with me on a weekday," Daylight said, divining the drift of her uncompleted argument.

"I didn't have that quite in mind, but it will do. I'd prefer doing the brazen thing and having everybody know

it, to doing the furtive thing and being found out. Not that I'm asking to be invited to lunch," she added, with

She shook her head with what he imagined was just the faintest hint of regret, and he went suddenly and

"Look here, Miss Mason, I know you don't like this talking over of things in the office. Neither do I. It's part

of the whole thing, I guess; a man ain't supposed to talk anything but business with his stenographer. Will

you ride with me next Sunday, and we can talk it over thoroughly then and reach some sort of a conclusion.

Out in the hills is the place where you can talk something besides business. I guess you've seen enough of me

to know I'm pretty square. II do honor and respect you, and... and all that, and I .." He was beginning to

flounder, and the hand that rested on the desk blotter was visibly trembling. He strove to pull himself

together. "I just want to harder than anything ever in my life before. III can't explain myself, but I do, that's

Nor did he dream that her low acquiescence was due, as much as anything else, to the beads of sweat on his

"Of course, there's no way of telling what anybody wants from what they say." Daylight rubbed Bob's

rebellious ear with his quirt and pondered with dissatisfaction the words he had just uttered. They did not say

what he had meant them to say. "What I'm driving at is that you say flatfooted that you won't meet me again,

and you give your reasons, but how am I to know they are your real reasons? Mebbe you just don't want to

get acquainted with me, and won't say so for fear of hurting my feelings. Don't you see? I'm the last man in

the world to shove in where I'm not wanted. And if I thought you didn't care a whoop to see anything more of

Dede smiled at him in acknowledgment of his words, but rode on silently. And that smile, he thought, was

the most sweetly wonderful smile he had ever seen. There was a difference in it, he assured himself, from any

It was the smile of one who knew him just a little bit, of one who was just the least mite acquainted with him.

Of course, he checked himself up the next moment, it was unconscious on her part. It was sure to come in the

Any stranger, a business man, a clerk, anybody after a few casual meetings would show similar signs of

friendliness. It was bound to happen, but in her case it made more impression on him; and, besides, it was

such a sweet and wonderful smile. Other women he had known had never smiled like that; he was sure of it.

It had been a happy day. Daylight had met her on the backroad from Berkeley, and they had had hours

together. It was only now, with the day drawing to a close and with them approaching the gate of the road to

"But suppose, just suppose, that the reasons I have given are the only ones?that there is no question of my

"Then I'd go on urging like Sam Scratch," he said quickly. "Because, you see, I've always noticed that folks

that incline to anything are much more open to hearing the case stated. But if you did have that other reason

up your sleeve, if you didn't want to know me, ifif, well, if you thought my feelings oughtn't to be hurt just

because you had a good job with me..." Here, his calm consideration of a possibility was swamped by the fear

that it was an actuality, and he lost the thread of his reasoning. "Well, anyway, all you have to do is to say the

And with no hard feelings; it would be just a case of bad luck for me. So be honest, Miss Mason, please, and

She glanced up at him, her eyes abruptly and slightly moist, half with hurt, half with anger.

"Oh, but that isn't fair," she cried. "You give me the choice of lying to you and hurting you in order to protect

myself by getting rid of you, or of throwing away my protection by telling you the truth, for then you, as you

Her cheeks were flushed, her lips tremulous, but she continued to look him frankly in the eyes.

"But they won't serve you," she went on hastily. "They can't serve you. I refuse to let them. This is our last

Ranging her mare alongside, she bent, slid the catch, and followed the opening gate.

Humbly acquiescent, he pulled Bob back, and the gate swung shut between them. But there was more to say,

"Listen, Miss Mason," he said, in a low voice that shook with sincerity; "I want to assure you of one thing.

I'm not just trying to fool around with you. I like you, I want you, and I was never more in earnest in my life.

There's nothing wrong in my intentions or anything like that. What I mean is strictly honorable"

But the expression of her face made him stop. She was angry, and she was laughing at the same time.

"The last thing you should have said," she cried. "It's like aa matrimonial bureau: intentions strictly

honorable; object, matrimony. But it's no more than I deserved. This is what I suppose you call urging like

The tan had bleached out of Daylight's skin since the time he came to live under city roofs, so that the flush

of blood showed readily as it crept up his neck past the collar and overspread his face. Nor in his exceeding

discomfort did he dream that she was looking upon him at that moment with more kindness than at any time

that day. It was not in her experience to behold big grownup men who blushed like boys, and already she

"Now, look here, Miss Mason," he began, slowly and stumblingly at first, but accelerating into a rapidity of

utterance that was almost incoherent; "I'm a rough sort of a man, I know that, and I know I don't know much

of anything. I've never had any training in nice things. I've never made love before, and I've never been in

love before eitherand I don't know how to go about it any more than a thundering idiot. What you want to

do is get behind my tomfool words and get a feel of the man that's behind them. That's me, and I mean all

Dede Mason had quick, birdlike ways, almost flitting from mood to mood; and she was all contrition on the

"Forgive me for laughing," she said across the gate. "It wasn't really laughter. I was surprised off my guard,

She paused, in sudden fear of completing the thought into which her birdlike precipitancy had betrayed her.

"What you mean is that you've not been used to such sort of proposing," Daylight said; "a sort of ontherun,

She nodded and broke into laughter, in which he joined, and which served to pass the awkwardness away. He

gathered heart at this, and went on in greater confidence, with cooler head and tongue.

"There, you see, you prove my case. You've had experience in such matters. I don't doubt you've had slathers

of proposals. Well, I haven't, and I'm like a fish out of water. Besides, this ain't a proposal. It's a peculiar

situation, that's all, and I'm in a corner. I've got enough plain horsesense to know a man ain't supposed to

argue marriage with a girl as a reason for getting acquainted with her. And right there was where I was in the

hole. Number one, I can't get acquainted with you in the office. Number two, you say you won't see me out of

the office to give me a chance. Number three, your reason is that folks will talk because you work for me.

Number four, I just got to get acquainted with you, and I just got to get you to see that I mean fair and all

right. Number five, there you are on one side the gate getting ready to go, and me here on the other side the

gate pretty desperate and bound to say something to make you reconsider. Number six, I said it. And now and

And, listening to him, pleasuring in the sight of his earnest, perturbed face and in the simple, homely phrases

that but emphasized his earnestness and marked the difference between him and the average run of men she

had known, she forgot to listen and lost herself in her own thoughts. The love of a strong man is ever a lure to

a normal woman, and never more strongly did Dede feel the lure than now, looking across the closed gate at

Burning Daylight. Not that she would ever dream of marrying himshe had a score of reasons against it; but

why not at least see more of him? He was certainly not repulsive to her. On the contrary, she liked him, had

always liked him from the day she had first seen him and looked upon his lean Indian face and into his

flashing Indian eyes. He was a figure of a man in more ways than his mere magnificent muscles. Besides,

Romance had gilded him, this doughty, roughhewn adventurer of the North, this man of many deeds and

many millions, who had come down out of the Arctic to wrestle and fight so masterfully with the men of the

Savage as a Red Indian, gambler and profligate, a man without morals, whose vengeance was never glutted

and who stamped on the faces of all who opposed himoh, yes, she knew all the hard names he had been

called. Yet she was not afraid of him. There was more than that in the connotation of his name. Burning

Daylight called up other things as well. They were there in the newspapers, the magazines, and the books on

the Klondike. When all was said, Burning Daylight had a mighty connotationone to touch any woman's

imagination, as it touched hers, the gate between them, listening to the wistful and impassioned simplicity of

his speech. Dede was after all a woman, with a woman's sexvanity, and it was this vanity that was pleased

And there was more that passed through her mindsensations of tiredness and loneliness; trampling

squadrons and shadowy armies of vague feelings and vaguer prompting; and deeper and dimmer whisperings

and echoings, the flutterings of forgotten generations crystallized into being and fluttering anew and always,

undreamed and unguessed, subtle and potent, the spirit and essence of life that under a thousand deceits and

masks forever makes for life. It was a strong temptation, just to ride with this man in the hills. It would be

that only and nothing more, for she was firmly convinced that his way of life could never be her way. On the

other hand, she was vexed by none of the ordinary feminine fears and timidities. That she could take care of

herself under any and all circumstances she never doubted. Then why not? It was such a little thing, after all.

She led an ordinary, humdrum life at best. She ate and slept and worked, and that was about all. As if in

review, her anchorite existence passed before her: six days of the week spent in the office and in journeying

back and forth on the ferry; the hours stolen before bedtime for snatches of song at the piano, for doing her

own special laundering, for sewing and mending and casting up of meagre accounts; the two evenings a week

of social diversion she permitted herself; the other stolen hours and Saturday afternoons spent with her

brother at the hospital; and the seventh day, Sunday, her day of solace, on Mab's back, out among the blessed

hills. But it was lonely, this solitary riding. Nobody of her acquaintance rode. Several girls at the University

had been persuaded into trying it, but after a Sunday or two on hired livery hacks they had lost interest. There

was Madeline, who bought her own horse and rode enthusiastically for several months, only to get married

and go away to live in Southern California. After years of it, one did get tired of this eternal riding alone.

He was such a boy, this big giant of a millionaire who had half the rich men of San Francisco afraid of him.

"How do folks get married?" he was saying. "Why, number one, they meet; number two, like each other's

looks; number three, get acquainted; and number four, get married or not, according to how they like each

other after getting acquainted. But how in thunder we're to have a chance to find out whether we like each

other enough is beyond my savvee, unless we make that chance ourselves. I'd come to see you, call on you,

Suddenly, with a change of mood, the situation appeared to Dede ridiculously absurd. She felt a desire to

laughnot angrily, not hysterically, but just jolly. It was so funny. Herself, the stenographer, he, the

notorious and powerful gambling millionaire, and the gate between them across which poured his argument

of people getting acquainted and married. Also, it was an impossible situation. On the face of it, she could not

go on with it. This program of furtive meetings in the hills would have to discontinue. There would never be

another meeting. And if, denied this, he tried to woo her in the office, she would be compelled to lose a very

good position, and that would be an end of the episode. It was not nice to contemplate; but the world of men,

especially in the cities, she had not found particularly nice. She had not worked for her living for years

"We won't do any sneaking or hiding around about it," Daylight was explaining. "We'll ride around as bold if

you please, and if anybody sees us, why, let them. If they talkwell, so long as our consciences are straight

we needn't worry. Say the word, and Bob will have on his back the happiest man alive."

She shook her head, pulled in the mare, who was impatient to be off for home, and glanced significantly at

"It's getting late now, anyway," Daylight hurried on, "and we've settled nothing after all. Just one more

"But we started to talk it over too late. We'll tackle it earlier next time. This is a big serious proposition with

"Are men ever fair?" she asked. "You know thoroughly well that by 'next Sunday' you mean many Sundays."

"Then let it be many Sundays," he cried recklessly, while she thought that she had never seen him looking

At the same moment she put the mare into a canter and went down the road without a backward glance, intent

on an analysis of her own feelings. With her mind made up to say noand to the last instant she had been so

resolvedher lips nevertheless had said yes. Or at least it seemed the lips. She had not intended to consent.

Then why had she? Her first surprise and bewilderment at so wholly unpremeditated an act gave way to

consternation as she considered its consequences. She knew that Burning Daylight was not a man to be trifled

with, that under his simplicity and boyishness he was essentially a dominant male creature, and that she had

pledged herself to a future of inevitable stress and storm. And again she demanded of herself why she had

Life at the office went on much the way it had always gone. Never, by word or look, did they acknowledge

that the situation was in any wise different from what it had always been. Each Sunday saw the arrangement

made for the following Sunday's ride; nor was this ever referred to in the office. Daylight was fastidiously

chivalrous on this point. He did not want to lose her from the office. The sight of her at her work was to him

an undiminishing joy. Nor did he abuse this by lingering over dictation or by devising extra work that would

detain her longer before his eyes. But over and beyond such sheer selfishness of conduct was his love of fair

play. He scorned to utilize the accidental advantages of the situation. Somewhere within him was a higher

appeasement of love than mere possession. He wanted to be loved for himself, with a fair field for both sides.

On the other hand, had he been the most artful of schemers he could not have pursued a wiser policy.

Birdlike in her love of individual freedom, the last woman in the world to be bullied in her affections, she

keenly appreciated the niceness of his attitude. She did this consciously, but deeper than all consciousness,

and intangible as gossamer, were the effects of this. All unrealizable, save for some supreme moment, did the

web of Daylight's personality creep out and around her. Filament by filament, these secret and undreamable

bonds were being established. They it was that could have given the cue to her saying yes when she had

meant to say no. And in some such fashion, in some future crisis of greater moment, might she not, in

violation of all dictates of sober judgment, give another unintentional consent?

Among other good things resulting from his growing intimacy with Dede, was Daylight's not caring to drink

so much as formerly. There was a lessening in desire for alcohol of which even he at last became aware. In a

way she herself was the needed inhibition. The thought of her was like a cocktail. Or, at any rate, she

substituted for a certain percentage of cocktails. From the strain of his unnatural city existence and of his

intense gambling operations, he had drifted on to the cocktail route. A wall must forever be built to give him

easement from the high pitch, and Dede became a part of this wall. Her personality, her laughter, the

intonations of her voice, the impossible golden glow of her eyes, the light on her hair, her form, her dress, her

actions on horseback, her merest physical mannerismsall, pictured over and over in his mind and dwelt

In spite of their high resolve, there was a very measurable degree of the furtive in their meetings. In essence,

these meetings were stolen. They did not ride out brazenly together in the face of the world. On the contrary,

they met always unobserved, she riding across the manygated backroad from Berkeley to meet him halfway.

Nor did they ride on any save unfrequented roads, preferring to cross the second range of hills and travel

among a churchgoing farmer folk who would scarcely have recognized even Daylight from his newspaper

He found Dede a good horsewomangood not merely in riding but in endurance. There were days when

they covered sixty, seventy, and even eighty miles; nor did Dede ever claim any day too long, noranother

strong recommendation to Daylightdid the hardest day ever the slightest chafe of the chestnut sorrel's

back. "A sure enough hummer," was Daylight's stereotyped but ever enthusiastic verdict to himself.

They learned much of each other on these long, uninterrupted rides. They had nothing much to talk about but

themselves, and, while she received a liberal education concerning Arctic travel and goldmining, he, in turn,

touch by touch, painted an ever clearer portrait of her. She amplified the ranch life of her girlhood, prattling

on about horses and dogs and persons and things until it was as if he saw the whole process of her growth and

her becoming. All this he was able to trace on through the period of her father's failure and death, when she

had been compelled to leave the university and go into office work. The brother, too, she spoke of, and of her

long struggle to have him cured and of her now fading hopes. Daylight decided that it was easier to come to

an understanding of her than he had anticipated, though he was always aware that behind and under all he

knew of her was the mysterious and baffling woman and sex. There, he was humble enough to confess to

himself, was a chartless, shoreless sea, about which he knew nothing and which he must nevertheless

His lifelong fear of woman had originated out of nonunderstanding and had also prevented him from

reaching any understanding. Dede on horseback, Dede gathering poppies on a summer hillside, Dede taking

down dictation in her swift shorthand strokesall this was comprehensible to him. But he did not know the

Dede who so quickly changed from mood to mood, the Dede who refused steadfastly to ride with him and

then suddenly consented, the Dede in whose eyes the golden glow forever waxed and waned and whispered

hints and messages that were not for his ears. In all such things he saw the glimmering profundities of sex,

There was another side of her, too, of which he was consciously ignorant. She knew the books, was possessed

of that mysterious and awful thing called "culture." And yet, what continually surprised him was that this

culture was never obtruded on their intercourse. She did not talk books, nor art, nor similar folderols. Homely

minded as he was himself, he found her almost equally homely minded. She liked the simple and the

outofdoors, the horses and the hills, the sunlight and the flowers. He found himself in a partly new flora, to

which she was the guide, pointing out to him all the varieties of the oaks, making him acquainted with the

madrono and the manzanita, teaching him the names, habits, and habitats of unending series of wild flowers,

shrubs, and ferns. Her keen woods eye was another delight to him. It had been trained in the open, and little

escaped it. One day, as a test, they strove to see which could discover the greater number of birds' nests. And

he, who had always prided himself on his own acutely trained observation, found himself hard put to keep his

score ahead. At the end of the day he was but three nests in the lead, one of which she challenged stoutly and

of which even he confessed serious doubt. He complimented her and told her that her success must be due to

the fact that she was a bird herself, with all a bird's keen vision and quickflashing ways.

The more he knew her the more he became convinced of this birdlike quality in her. That was why she liked

to ride, he argued. It was the nearest approach to flying. A field of poppies, a glen of ferns, a row of poplars

on a country lane, the tawny brown of a hillside, the shaft of sunlight on a distant peakall such were

provocative of quick joys which seemed to him like so many outbursts of song. Her joys were in little things,

and she seemed always singing. Even in sterner things it was the same. When she rode Bob and fought with

that magnificent brute for mastery, the qualities of an eagle were uppermost in her.

These quick little joys of hers were sources of joy to him. He joyed in her joy, his eyes as excitedly fixed on

her as bears were fixed on the object of her attention. Also through her he came to a closer discernment and

keener appreciation of nature. She showed him colors in the landscape that he would never have dreamed

were there. He had known only the primary colors. All colors of red were red. Black was black, and brown

was just plain brown until it became yellow, when it was no longer brown. Purple he had always imagined

was red, something like blood, until she taught him better. Once they rode out on a high hill brow where

windblown poppies blazed about their horses' knees, and she was in an ecstasy over the lines of the many

distances. Seven, she counted, and he, who had gazed on landscapes all his life, for the first time learned what

a "distance" was. After that, and always, he looked upon the face of nature with a more seeing eye, learning a

delight of his own in surveying the serried ranks of the upstanding ranges, and in slow contemplation of the

But through it all ran the golden thread of love. At first he had been content just to ride with Dede and to be

on comradely terms with her; but the desire and the need for her increased. The more he knew of her, the

higher was his appraisal. Had she been reserved and haughty with him, or been merely a giggling, simpering

creature of a woman, it would have been different. Instead, she amazed him with her simplicity and

wholesomeness, with her great store of comradeliness. This latter was the unexpected. He had never looked

upon woman in that way. Woman, the toy; woman, the harpy; woman, the necessary wife and mother of the

race's offspring,all this had been his expectation and understanding of woman. But woman, the comrade

and playfellow and joyfellowthis was what Dede had surprised him in. And the more she became worth

while, the more ardently his love burned, unconsciously shading his voice with caresses, and with equal

unconsciousness flaring up signal fires in his eyes. Nor was she blind to it yet, like many women before her,

she thought to play with the pretty fire and escape the consequent conflagration.

"Winter will soon be coming on," she said regretfully, and with provocation, one day, "and then there won't

"We have been very happy and all that," she said, looking at him with steady frankness. "I remember your

foolish argument for getting acquainted, too; but it won't lead to anything; it can't. I know myself too well to

Her face was serious, even solicitous with desire not to hurt, and her eyes were unwavering, but in them was

the light, golden and glowingthe abyss of sex into which he was now unafraid to gaze.

"I've been pretty good," he declared. "I leave it to you if I haven't. It's been pretty hard, too, I can tell you.

You just think it over. Not once have I said a word about love to you, and me loving you all the time. That's

going some for a man that's used to having his own way. I'm somewhat of a rusher when it comes to

travelling. I reckon I'd rush God Almighty if it came to a race over the ice. And yet I didn't rush you. I guess

this fact is an indication of how much I do love you. Of course I want you to marry me. Have I said a word

about it, though? Nary a chirp, nary a flutter. I've been quiet and good, though it's almost made me sick at

times, this keeping quiet. I haven't asked you to marry me. I'm not asking you now. Oh, not but what you

satisfy me. I sure know you're the wife for me. But how about myself ? Do you know me well enough know

your own mind?" He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, and I ain't going to take chances on it now.

You've got to know for sure whether you think you could get along with me or not, and I'm playing a slow

This was lovemaking of a sort beyond Dede's experience. Nor had she ever heard of anything like it.

Furthermore, its lack of ardor carried with it a shock which she could overcome only by remembering the

way his hand had trembled in the past, and by remembering the passion she had seen that very day and every

day in his eyes, or heard in his voice. Then, too, she recollected what he had said to her weeks before:

"Maybe you don't know what patience is," he had said, and thereat told her of shooting squirrels with a big

"So you see," he urged, "just for a square deal we've got to see some more of each other this winter. Most

"But it is," she interrupted. "I wouldn't dare permit myself to care for you. Happiness, for me, would not lie

that way. I like you, Mr. Harnish, and all that, but it can never be more than that."

"It's because you don't like my way of living," he charged, thinking in his own mind of the sensational

joyrides and general profligacy with which the newspapers had credited himthinking this, and wondering

"I know I've been brash on some of those rides that got into the papers," he began his defense, "and that I've

"I don't mean that," she said, "though I know about it too, and can't say that I like it. But it is your life in

general, your business. There are women in the world who could marry a man like you and be happy, but I

couldn't. And the more I cared for such a man, the more unhappy I should be. You see, my unhappiness, in

turn, would tend to make him unhappy. I should make a mistake, and he would make an equal mistake,

though his would not be so hard on him because he would still have his business."

"Business!" Daylight gasped. "What's wrong with my business? I play fair and square. There's nothing under

hand about it, which can't be said of most businesses, whether of the big corporations or of the cheating,

lying, little cornergrocerymen. I play the straight rules of the game, and I don't have to lie or cheat or break

Dede hailed with relief the change in the conversation and at the same time the opportunity to speak her

"In ancient Greece," she began pedantically, "a man was judged a good citizen who built houses, planted

trees" She did not complete the quotation, but drew the conclusion hurriedly. "How many houses have you

He shook his head noncommittally, for he had not grasped the drift of the argument.

"Just locally," he grinned reminiscently, "just locally. And I took advantage of the car shortage and the strike

"But you didn't dig any of that coal yourself. Yet you forced it up four dollars a ton and made a lot of money.

That was your business. You made the poor people pay more for their coal. You played fair, as you said, but

you put your hands down into all their pockets and took their money away from them. I know. I burn a grate

fire in my sittingroom at Berkeley. And instead of eleven dollars a ton for Rock Wells, I paid fifteen dollars

that winter. You robbed me of four dollars. I could stand it. But there were thousands of the very poor who

could not stand it. You might call it legal gambling, but to me it was downright robbery."

Daylight was not abashed. This was no revelation to him. He remembered the old woman who made wine in

"Now look here, Miss Mason, you've got me there slightly, I grant. But you've seen me in business a long

time now, and you know I don't make a practice of raiding the poor people. I go after the big fellows. They're

my meat. They rob the poor, and I rob them. That coal deal was an accident. I wasn't after the poor people in

that, but after the big fellows, and I got them, too. The poor people happened to get in the way and got hurt,

"Don't you see," he went on, "the whole game is a gamble. Everybody gambles in one way or another. The

farmer gambles against the weather and the market on his crops. So does the United States Steel Corporation.

The business of lots of men is straight robbery of the poor people. But I've never made that my business. You

"I see it more clearly than I can state it, but it's something like this. There is legitimate work, and there's work

thatwell, that isn't legitimate. The farmer works the soil and produces grain. He's making something that is

good for humanity. He actually, in a way, creates something, the grain that will fill the mouths of the

"And then the railroads and marketriggers and the rest proceed to rob him of that same grain,"Daylight

"Wait a minute. You'll make me lose my point. It doesn't hurt if they rob him of all of it so that he starves to

death. The point is that the wheat he grew is still in the world. It exists. Don't you see? The farmer created

something, say ten tons of wheat, and those ten tons exist. The railroads haul the wheat to market, to the

mouths that will eat it. This also is legitimate. It's like some one bringing you a glass of water, or taking a

cinder out of your eye. Something has been done, in a way been created, just like the wheat."

"Then the work they do is partly legitimate and partly not. Now we come to you. You don't create anything.

Nothing new exists when you're done with your business. Just like the coal. You didn't dig it. You didn't haul

it to market. You didn't deliver it. Don't you see? that's what I meant by planting the trees and building the

"I never guessed there was a woman in the world who could talk business like that," he murmured

admiringly. "And you've got me on that point. But there's a lot to be said on my side just the same. Now you

listen to me. I'm going to talk under three heads. Number one: We live a short time, the best of us, and we're a

long time dead. Life is a big gambling game. Some are born lucky and some are born unlucky. Everybody

sits in at the table, and everybody tries to rob everybody else. Most of them get robbed. They're born suckers.

"Fellow like me comes along and sizes up the proposition. I've got two choices. I can herd with the suckers,

or I can herd with the robbers. As a sucker, I win nothing. Even the crusts of bread are snatched out of my

mouth by the robbers. I work hard all my days, and die working. And I ain't never had a flutter. I've had

nothing but work, work, work. They talk about the dignity of labor. I tell you there ain't no dignity in that sort

of labor. My other choice is to herd with the robbers, and I herd with them. I play that choice wide open to

"Number two: There ain't much difference between playing halfway robber like the railroad hauling that

farmer's wheat to market, and playing all robber and robbing the robbers like I do. And, besides, halfway

robbery is too slow a game for me to sit in. You don't win quick enough for me."

"But what do you want to win for?" Dede demanded. "You have millions and millions, already. You can't

ride in more than one automobile at a time, sleep in more than one bed at a time."

"Number three answers that," he said, "and here it is: Men and things are so made that they have different

likes. A rabbit likes a vegetarian diet. A lynx likes meat. Ducks swim; chickens are scairt of water. One man

collects postage stamps, another man collects butterflies. This man goes in for paintings, that man goes in for

yachts, and some other fellow for hunting big game. One man thinks horseracing is It, with a big I, and

another man finds the biggest satisfaction in actresses. They can't help these likes. They have them, and what

are they going to do about it? Now I like gambling. I like to play the game. I want to play it big and play it

"Doing good with your money! It's like slapping God in the face, as much as to tell him that he don't know

how to run his world and that you'll be much obliged if he'll stand out of the way and give you a chance.

Thinking about God doesn't keep me sitting up nights, so I've got another way of looking at it. Ain't it funny,

to go around with brass knuckles and a big club breaking folks' heads and taking their money away from

them until I've got a pile, and then, repenting of my ways, going around and bandaging up the heads the other

robbers are breaking? I leave it to you. That's what doing good with money amounts to. Every once in a while

some robber turns softhearted and takes to driving an ambulance. That's what Carnegie did. He smashed

heads in pitched battles at Homestead, regular wholesale headbreaker he was, held up the suckers for a few

hundred million, and now he goes around dribbling it back to them. funny? I leave it to you."

He rolled a cigarette and watched her half curiously, half amusedly. His replies and harsh generalizations of a

"I can't argue with you, and you know that. No matter how right a woman is, men have such a way about

them well, what they say sounds most convincing, and yet the woman is still certain they are wrong. But

there is one thingthe creative joy. Call it gambling if you will, but just the same it seems to me more

satisfying to create something, make something, than just to roll dice out of a dicebox all day long. Why,

sometimes, for exercise, or when I've got to pay fifteen dollars for coal, I curry Mab and give her a whole half

hour's brushing. And when I see her coat clean and shining and satiny, I feel a satisfaction in what I've done.

So it must be with the man who builds a house or plants a tree. He can look at it. He made it. It's his

handiwork. Even if somebody like you comes along and takes his tree away from him, still it is there, and

still did he make it. You can't rob him of that, Mr. Harnish, with all your millions. It's the creative joy, and it's

a higher joy than mere gambling. Haven't you ever made things yourselfa log cabin up in the Yukon, or a

canoe, or raft, or something? And don't you remember how satisfied you were, how good you felt, while you

While she spoke his memory was busy with the associations she recalled. He saw the deserted flat on the

river bank by the Klondike, and he saw the log cabins and warehouses spring up, and all the log structures he

"Why, doggone it, Miss Mason, you're rightin a way. I've built hundreds of houses up there, and I

remember I was proud and glad to see them go up. I'm proud now, when I remember them. And there was

Ophirthe most Godforsaken moosepasture of a creek you ever laid eyes on. I made that into the big

Ophir. Why, I ran the water in there from the Rinkabilly, eighty miles away. They all said I couldn't, but I did

it, and I did it by myself. The dam and the flume cost me four million. But you should have seen that

Ophirpower plants, electric lights, and hundreds of men on the payroll, working night and day. I guess I

do get an inkling of what you mean by making a thing. I made Ophir, and by God, she was a sure hummerI

beg your pardon. I didn't mean to cuss. But that Ophir !I sure am proud of her now, just as the last time I

"And you won something there that was more than mere money," Dede encouraged. "Now do you know what

I would do if I had lots of money and simply had to go on playing at business? Take all the southerly and

westerly slopes of these bare hills. I'd buy them in and plant eucalyptus on them. I'd do it for the joy of doing

it anyway; but suppose I had that gambling twist in me which you talk about, why, I'd do it just the same and

make money out of the trees. And there's my other point again. Instead of raising the price of coal without

adding an ounce of coal to the market supply, I'd be making thousands and thousands of cords of

firewoodmaking something where nothing was before. And everybody who ever crossed on the ferries

would look up at these forested hills and be made glad. Who was made glad by your adding four dollars a ton

"It would be better for the world, and better for you," she answered noncommittally.

All week every one in the office knew that something new and big was afoot in Daylight's mind. Beyond

some deals of no importance, he had not been interested in anything for several months. But now he went

about in an almost unbroken brown study, made unexpected and lengthy trips across the bay to Oakland, or

sat at his desk silent and motionless for hours. He seemed particularly happy with what occupied his mind. At

times men came in and conferred with himand with new faces and differing in type from those that usually

On Sunday Dede learned all about it. "I've been thinking a lot of our talk," he began, "and I've got an idea I'd

like to give it a flutter. And I've got a proposition to make your hair stand up. It's what you call legitimate,

and at the same time it's the goshdangdest gamble a man ever went into. How about planting minutes

wholesale, and making two minutes grow where one minute grew before? Oh, yes, and planting a few trees,

toosay several million of them. You remember the quarry I made believe I was looking at? Well, I'm going

to buy it. I'm going to buy these hills, too, clear from here around to Berkeley and down the other way to San

Leandro. I own a lot of them already, for that matter. But mum is the word. I'll be buying a long time to come

before anything much is guessed about it, and I don't want the market to jump up out of sight. You see that

hill over there. It's my hill running clear down its slopes through Piedmont and halfway along those rolling

He paused triumphantly. "And all to make two minutes grow where one grew before?" Dede queried, at the

He stared at her fascinated. She had such a frank, boyish way of throwing her head back when she laughed.

And her teeth were an unending delight to him. Not small, yet regular and firm, without a blemish, he

considered then the healthiest, whitest, prettiest teeth he had ever seen. And for months he had been

"The ferry system between Oakland and San Francisco is the worst onehorse concern in the United States.

You cross on it every day, six days in the week. That's say, twentyfive days a month, or three hundred a

year. Now long does it take you one way? Forty minutes, if you're lucky. I'm going to put you across in

twenty minutes. If that ain't making two minutes grow where one grew before, knock off my head with little

apples. I'll save you twenty minutes each way. That's forty minutes a day, times three hundred, equals twelve

thousand minutes a year, just for you, just for one person. Let's see: that's two hundred whole hours. Suppose

I save two hundred hours a year for thousands of other folks,that's farming some, ain't it?"

Dede could only nod breathlessly. She had caught the contagion of his enthusiasm, though she had no clew as

"Come on," he said. "Let's ride up that hill, and when I get you out on top where you can see something, I'll

A small footpath dropped down to the dry bed of the canon, which they crossed before they began the climb.

The slope was steep and covered with matted brush and bushes, through which the horses slipped and lunged.

Bob, growing disgusted, turned back suddenly and attempted to pass Mab. The mare was thrust sidewise into

the denser bush, where she nearly fell. Recovering, she flung her weight against Bob. Both riders' legs were

caught in the consequent squeeze, and, as Bob plunged ahead down hill, Dede was nearly scraped off.

Daylight threw his horse on to its haunches and at the same time dragged Dede back into the saddle. Showers

of twigs and leaves fell upon them, and predicament followed predicament, until they emerged on the hilltop

the worse for wear but happy and excited. Here no trees obstructed the view. The particular hill on which

they were, outjutted from the regular line of the range, so that the sweep of their vision extended over

threequarters of the circle. Below, on the flat land bordering the bay, lay Oakland, and across the bay was

San Francisco. Between the two cities they could see the white ferryboats on the water. Around to their right

was Berkeley, and to their left the scattered villages between Oakland and San Leandro. Directly in the

foreground was Piedmont, with its desultory dwellings and patches of farming land, and from Piedmont the

"Look at it," said Daylight, extending his arm in a sweeping gesture. "A hundred thousand people there, and

no reason there shouldn't be half a million. There's the chance to make five people grow where one grows

now. Here's the scheme in a nutshell. Why don't more people live in Oakland? No good service with San

Francisco, and, besides, Oakland is asleep. It's a whole lot better place to live in than San Francisco. Now,

suppose I buy in all the street railways of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, San Leandro, and the rest,bring

them under one head with a competent management? Suppose I cut the time to San Francisco onehalf by

building a big pier out there almost to Goat Island and establishing a ferry system with modern uptodate

boats? Why, folks will want to live over on this side. Very good. They'll need land on which to build. So, first

I buy up the land. But the land's cheap now. Why? Because it's in the country, no electric roads, no quick

communication, nobody guessing that the electric roads are coming. I'll build the roads. That will make the

land jump up. Then I'll sell the land as fast as the folks will want to buy because of the improved ferry system

"You see, I give the value to the land by building the roads. Then I sell the land and get that value back, and

after that, there's the roads, all carrying folks back and forth and earning big money. Can't lose. And there's

I'm going to get my hands on some of that water front and the tidelands. Take between where I'm going to

build my pier and the old pier. It's shallow water. I can fill and dredge and put in a system of docks that will

handle hundreds of ships. San Francisco's water front is congested. No more room for ships. With hundreds

of ships loading and unloading on this side right into the freight cars of three big railroads, factories will start

up over here instead of crossing to San Francisco. That means factory sites. That means me buying in the

factory sites before anybody guesses the cat is going to jump, much less, which way. Factories mean tens of

thousands of workingmen and their families. That means more houses and more land, and that means me, for

I'll be there to sell them the land. And tens of thousands of families means tens of thousands of nickels every

day for my electric cars. The growing population will mean more stores, more banks, more everything. And

that'll mean me, for I'll be right there with business property as well as home property. What do you think of

Therefore she could answer, he was off again, his mind's eye filled with this new city of his dream which he

"Do you knowI've been looking it upthe Firth Of Clyde, where all the steel ships are built, isn't half as

wide as Oakland Creek down there, where all those old hulks lie? Why ain't it a Firth of Clyde? Because the

Oakland City Council spends its time debating about prunes and raisins. What is needed is somebody to see

things, and, after that, organization. That's me. I didn't make Ophir for nothing. And once things begin to

hum, outside capital will pour in. All I do is start it going. 'Gentlemen,' I say, 'here's all the natural advantages

God Almighty put them advantages here, and he put me here to see them. Do you want to land your tea and

silk from Asia and ship it straight East? Here's the docks for your steamers, and here's the railroads. Do you

want factories from which you can ship direct by land or water? Here's the site, and here's the modern,

uptodate city, with the latest improvements for yourselves and your workmen, to live in.'"

"Then there's the water. I'll come pretty close to owning the watershed. Why not the waterworks too? There's

two water companies in Oakland now, fighting like cats and dogs and both about broke. What a metropolis

needs is a good water system. They can't give it. They're stickinthemuds. I'll gobble them up and deliver

the right article to the city. There's money there, toomoney everywhere. Everything works in with

everything else. Each improvement makes the value of everything else pump up. It's people that are behind

the value. The bigger the crowd that herds in one place, the more valuable is the real estate. And this is the

very place for a crowd to herd. Look at it. Just look at it! You could never find a finer site for a great city. All

it needs is the herd, and I'll stampede a couple of hundred thousand people in here ins two years. And what's

more it won't be one of these wild cat land booms. It will be legitimate. Twenty years for now there'll be a

million people on this side the bay. Another thing is hotels. There isn't a decent one in the town. I'll build a

couple of uptodate ones that'll make them sit up and take notice. I won't care if they don't pay for years.

Their effect will more than give me my money back out of the other holdings. And, oh, yes, I'm going to

"But how are you going to do it?" Dede asked. "You haven't enough money for all that you've planned."

"I've thirty million, and if I need more I can borrow on the land and other things. Interest on mortgages won't

anywhere near eat up the increase in land values, and I'll be selling land right along."

In the weeks that followed, Daylight was a busy man. He spent most of his time in Oakland, rarely coming to

the office. He planned to move the office to Oakland, but, as he told Dede, the secret preliminary campaign of

buying had to be put through first. Sunday by Sunday, now from this hilltop and now from that, they looked

down upon the city and its farming suburbs, and he pointed out to her his latest acquisitions. At first it was

patches and sections of land here and there; but as the weeks passed it was the unowned portions that became

It meant quick work on a colossal scale, for Oakland and the adjacent country was not slow to feel the

tremendous buying. But Daylight had the ready cash, and it had always been his policy to strike quickly.

Before the others could get the warning of the boom, he quietly accomplished many things. At the same time

that his agents were purchasing corner lots and entire blocks in the heart of the business section and the waste

lands for factory sites, Day was rushing franchises through the city council, capturing the two exhausted

water companies and the eight or nine independent street railways, and getting his grip on the Oakland Creek

and the bay tidelands for his dock system. The tidelands had been in litigation for years, and he took the

bull by the hornsbuying out the private owners and at the same time leasing from the city fathers.

By the time that Oakland was aroused by this unprecedented activity in every direction and was questioning

excitedly the meaning of it, Daylight secretly bought the chief Republican newspaper and the chief

Democratic organ, and moved boldly into his new offices. Of necessity, they were on a large scale, occupying

four floors of the only modern office building in the townthe only building that wouldn't have to be torn

down later on, as Daylight put it. There was department after department, a score of them, and hundreds of

clerks and stenographers. As he told Dede: "I've got more companies than you can shake a stick at. There's

the Alameda Contra Costa Land Syndicate, the Consolidated Street Railways, the Yerba Buena Ferry

Company, the United Water Company, the Piedmont Realty Company, the Fairview and Portola Hotel

Company, and half a dozen more that I've got to refer to a notebook to remember. There's the Piedmont

Laundry Farm, and Redwood Consolidated Quarries. Starting in with our quarry, I just kept agoing till I got

them all. And there's the shipbuilding company I ain't got a name for yet. Seeing as I had to have

ferryboats, I decided to build them myself. They'll be done by the time the pier is ready for them. Phew! It

all sure beats poker. And I've had the fun of gouging the robber gangs as well. The water company bunches

are squealing yet. I sure got them where the hair was short. They were just about all in when I came along

"Yes; but not in the same way." Daylight regarded her thoughtfully. "When I say cowardly skunks, I mean

just that,cowardly skunks. They set up for a lot of gamblers, and there ain't one in a thousand of them that's

got the nerve to be a gambler. They're fourflushers, if you know what that means. They're a lot of little

cottontail rabbits making believe they're big ripsnorting timber wolves. They set out to everlastingly eat up

some proposition but at the first sign of trouble they turn tail and stampede for the brush. Look how it works.

When the big fellows wanted to unload Little Copper, they sent Jakey Fallow into the New York Stock

Exchange to yell out: 'I'll buy all or any part of Little Copper at fifty five,' Little Copper being at fiftyfour.

And in thirty minutes them cottontails financiers, some folks call thembid up Little Copper to sixty.

And an hour after that, stampeding for the brush, they were throwing Little Copper overboard at fortyfive

"They're catspaws for the big fellows. Almost as fast as they rob the suckers, the big fellows come along and

hold them up. Or else the big fellows use them in order to rob each other. That's the way the Chattanooga

Coal and Iron Company was swallowed up by the trust in the last panic. The trust made that panic. It had to

break a couple of big banking companies and squeeze half a dozen big fellows, too, and it did it by

stampeding the cottontails. The cottontails did the rest all right, and the trust gathered in Chattanooga Coal

and Iron. Why, any man, with nerve and savvee, can start them cottontails jumping for the brush. I don't

exactly hate them myself, but I haven't any regard for chickenhearted fourflushers."

For months Daylight was buried in work. The outlay was terrific, and there was nothing coming in. Beyond a

general rise in land values, Oakland had not acknowledged his irruption on the financial scene. The city was

waiting for him to show what he was going to do, and he lost no time about it. The best skilled brains on the

market were hired by him for the different branches of the work. Initial mistakes he had no patience with, and

he was determined to start right, as when he engaged Wilkinson, almost doubling his big salary, and brought

him out from Chicago to take charge of the street railway organization. Night and day the road gangs toiled

on the streets. And night and day the piledrivers hammered the big piles down into the mud of San

Francisco Bay. The pier was to be three miles long, and the Berkeley hills were denuded of whole groves of

At the same time that his electric roads were building out through the hills, the hayfields were being

surveyed and broken up into city squares, with here and there, according to best modern methods, winding

boulevards and strips of park. Broad streets, well graded, were made, with sewers and waterpipes ready laid,

and macadamized from his own quarries. Cement sidewalks were also laid, so that all the purchaser had to do

was to select his lot and architect and start building. The quick service of Daylight's new electric roads into

Oakland made this big district immediately accessible, and long before the ferry system was in operation

The profit on this land was enormous. In a day, his onslaught of wealth had turned open farming country into

But this money that flowed in upon him was immediately poured back into his other investments. The need

for electric cars was so great that he installed his own shops for building them. And even on the rising land

market, he continued to buy choice factory sites and building properties. On the advice of Wilkinson,

practically every electric road already in operation was rebuilt. The light, old fashioned rails were torn out

and replaced by the heaviest that were manufactured. Corner lots, on the sharp turns of narrow streets, were

bought and ruthlessly presented to the city in order to make wide curves for his tracks and high speed for his

cars. Then, too, there were the mainline feeders for his ferry system, tapping every portion of Oakland,

Alameda, and Berkeley, and running fast expresses to the pier end. The same largescale methods were

employed in the water system. Service of the best was needed, if his huge land investment was to succeed.

Oakland had to be made into a worthwhile city, and that was what he intended to do. In addition to his big

hotels, he built amusement parks for the common people, and art galleries and clubhouse country inns for

the more finicky classes. Even before there was any increase in population, a marked increase in

streetrailway traffic took place. There was nothing fanciful about his schemes. They were sound

"What Oakland wants is a first glass theatre," he said, and, after vainly trying to interest local capital, he

started the building of the theatre himself; for he alone had vision for the two hundred thousand new people

But no matter what pressure was on Daylight, his Sundays he reserved for his riding in the hills. It was not

the winter weather, however, that brought these rides with Dede to an end. One Saturday afternoon in the

office she told him not to expect to meet her next day, and, when he pressed for an explanation:

Daylight was speechless for the moment. Her act meant one of so many serious things that he couldn't

classify it. It smacked almost of treachery. She might have met with financial disaster.

"I couldn't afford to keep her with hay fortyfive dollars a ton," Dede answered.

"Was that your only reason?" he demanded, looking at her steadily; for he remembered her once telling him

how she had brought the mare through one winter, five years before, when hay had gone as high as sixty

"No. My brother's expenses have been higher, as well, and I was driven to the conclusion that since I could

Daylight felt inexpressibly saddened. He was suddenly aware of a great emptiness. What would a Sunday be

without Dede? And Sundays without end without her? He drummed perplexedly on the desk with his fingers.

"Who bought her?" he asked. Dede's eyes flashed in the way long since familiar to him when she was angry.

"Don't you dare buy her back for me," she cried. "And don't deny that that was what you had in mind."

"I won't deny it. It was my idea to a tee. But I wouldn't have done it without asking you first, and seeing how

you feel about it, I won't even ask you. But you thought a heap of that mare, and it's pretty hard on you to lose

her. I'm sure sorry. And I'm sorry, too, that you won't be riding with me tomorrow. I'll be plumb lost. I won't

"Neither shall I," Dede confessed mournfully, "except that I shall be able to catch up with my sewing."

Daylight's tone was whimsically plaintive, but secretly he was delighted with her confession of loneliness. It

was almost worth the loss of the mare to get that out of her. At any rate, he meant something to her. He was

"I wish you would reconsider, Miss Mason," he said softly. "Not alone for the mare's sake, but for my sake.

Money don't cut any ice in this. For me to buy that mare wouldn't mean as it does to most men to send a

bouquet of flowers or a box of candy to a young lady. And I've never sent you flowers or candy." He

observed the warning flash of her eyes, and hurried on to escape refusal. "I'll tell you what we'll do. Suppose I

buy the mare and own her myself, and lend her to you when you want to ride. There's nothing wrong in that.

"Lots of men take women buggyriding. There's nothing wrong in that. And the man always furnishes the

horse and buggy. Well, now, what's the difference between my taking you buggyriding and furnishing the

She shook her head, and declined to answer, at the same time looking at the door as if to intimate that it was

"Do you know, Miss Mason, I haven't a friend in the world outside you? I mean a real friend, man or woman,

the kind you chum with, you know, and that you're glad to be with and sorry to be away from. Hegan is the

nearest man I get to, and he's a million miles away from me. Outside business, we don't hitch. He's got a big

library of books, and some crazy kind of culture, and he spends all his off times reading things in French and

German and other outlandish lingoeswhen he ain't writing plays and poetry. There's nobody I feel chummy

with except you, and you know how little we've chummedonce a week, if it didn't rain, on Sunday. I've

"That's about it. And that mare, and you astride of her, coming along the road under the trees or through the

sunshinewhy, with both you and the mare missing, there won't be anything worth waiting through the

"No, no; I tell you no." Dede rose impatiently, but her eyes were moist with the memory of her pet. "Please

don't mention her to me again. If you think it was easy to part with her, you are mistaken. But I've seen the

Half an hour later he was conferring with Jones, the erstwhile elevator boy and rabid proletarian whom

Daylight long before had grubstaked to literature for a year. The resulting novel had been a failure. Editors

and publishers would not look at it, and now Daylight was using the disgruntled author in a little private

secret service system he had been compelled to establish for himself. Jones, who affected to be surprised at

nothing after his crushing experience with railroad freight rates on firweood and charcoal, betrayed no

surprise now when the task was given to him to locate the purchaser of a certain sorrel mare.

"Any price. You've got to get her, that's the point. Drive a sharp bargain so as not to excite suspicion, but her.

Then you deliver her to that address up in Sonoma County. The man's the caretaker on a little ranch I have

there. Tell him he's to take whacking good care of her. And after that forget all about it. Don't tell me the

name of the man you buy her from. Don't tell me anything about it except that you've got her and delivered

But the week had not passed, when Daylight noted the flash in Dede's eyes that boded trouble.

"Mab," she said. "The man who bought her has sold her already. If I thought you had anything to do with

"I don't even know who you sold her to," was Daylight's answer. "And what's more, I'm not bothering my

head about her. She was your mare, and it's none of my business what you did with her. You haven't got her,

that's sure and worse luck. And now, while we're on touchy subjects, I'm going to open another one with you.

"It's about that brother of yours. He needs more than you can do for him. Selling that mare of yours won't

send him to Germany. And that's what his own doctors say he needsthat crack German specialist who rips

a man's bones and muscles into pulp and then molds them all over again. Well, I want to send him to

"If it were only possible" she said, half breathlessly, and wholly without anger. "Only it isn't, and you know it

"Hold on, now," he interrupted. "Wouldn't you accept a drink of water from one of the Twelve Apostles if

you was dying of thirst? Or would you be afraid of his evil intentions"she made a gesture of dissent "or

"Now look here, Miss Mason. You've got to get some foolish notions out of your head. This money notion is

one of the funniest things I've seen. Suppose you was falling over a cliff, wouldn't it be all right for me to

reach out and hold you by the arm? Sure it would. But suppose you ended another sort of helpinstead of

the strength of arm, the strength of my pocket? That would be all and that's what they all say. But why do

they say it. Because the robber gangs want all the suckers to be honest and respect money. If the suckers

weren't honest and didn't respect money, where would the robbers be? Don't you see?

The robbers don't deal in armholds; they deal in dollars. Therefore armholds are just common and

ordinary, while dollars are sacredso sacred that you didn't let me lend you a hand with a few.

"Or here's another way," he continued, spurred on by her mute protest. "It's all right for me to give the

strength of my arm when you're falling over a cliff. But if I take that same strength of arm and use it at

pickandshovel work for a day and earn two dollars, you won't have anything to do with the two dollars.

Yet it's the same old strength of arm in a new form, that's all. Besides, in this proposition it won't be a claim

on you. It ain't even a loan to you. It's an armhold I'm giving your brotherjust the same sort of armhold

as if he was falling over a cliff. And a nice one you are, to come running out and yell 'Stop!' at me, and let

your brother go on over the cliff. What he needs to save his legs is that crack in Germany, and that's the

"Wish you could see my rooms. Walls all decorated with horsehair bridlesscores of themhundreds of

them. They're no use to me, and they cost like Sam Scratch. But there's a lot of convicts making them, and I

go on buying. Why, I've spent more money in a single night on whiskey than would get the best specialists

and pay all the expenses of a dozen cases like your brother's. And remember, you've got nothing to do with

this. If your brother wants to look on it as a loan, all right. It's up to him, and you've got to stand out of the

"I can only guess that you're standing in your brother's way on account of some mistaken idea in your head

that this is my idea of courting. Well, it ain't. You might as well think I'm courting all those convicts I buy

bridles from. I haven't asked you to marry me, and if I do I won't come trying to buy you into consenting.

Dede's face was flushed and angry. "If you knew how ridiculous you are, you'd stop," she blurted out. "You

can make me more uncomfortable than any man I ever knew. Every little while you give me to understand

I'm not waiting to be asked, and I warned you from the first that you had no chance. And yet you hold it over

my head that some time, some day, you're going to ask me to marry you. Go ahead and ask me now, and get

He looked at her in honest and pondering admiration. "I want you so bad, Miss Mason, that I don't dast to ask

you now," he said, with such whimsicality and earnestness as to make her throw her head back in a frank

boyish laugh. "Besides, as I told you, I'm green at it. I never went acourting before, and I don't want to make

"But you're making them all the time," she cried impulsively. "No man ever courted a woman by holding a

"I won't do it any more," he said humbly. "And anyway, we're off the argument. My straight talk a minute

ago still holds. You're standing in your brother's way. No matter what notions you've got in your head, you've

got to get out of the way and give him a chance. Will you let me go and see him and talk it over with him? I'll

make it a hard and fast business proposition. I'll stake him to get well, that's all, and charge him interest."

Still she refrained from giving her answer, and Daylight went on strengthening his position.

"And remember, I go over to see him alone. He's a man, and I can deal with him better without womenfolks

Daylight had been wholly truthful when he told Dede that he had no real friends. On speaking terms with

thousands, on fellowship and drinking terms with hundreds, he was a lonely man. He failed to find the one

man, or group of several men, with whom he could be really intimate. Cities did not make for comradeship as

did the Alaskan trail. Besides, the types of men were different. Scornful and contemptuous of business men

on the one hand, on the other his relations with the San Francisco bosses had been more an alliance of

expediency than anything else. He had felt more of kinship for the franker brutality of the bosses and their

captains, but they had failed to claim any deep respect. They were too prone to crookedness. Bonds were

better than men's word in this modern world, and one had to look carefully to the bonds.

In the old Yukon days it had been different. Bonds didn't go. A man said he had so much, and even in a poker

Larry Hegan, who rose ably to the largest demands of Daylight's operations and who had few illusions and

less hypocrisy, might have proved a chum had it not been for his temperamental twist. Strange genius that he

was, a Napoleon of the law, with a power of visioning that far exceeded Daylight's, he had nothing in

common with Daylight outside the office. He spent his time with books, a thing Daylight could not abide.

Also, he devoted himself to the endless writing of plays which never got beyond manuscript form, and,

though Daylight only sensed the secret taint of it, was a confirmed but temperate eater of hasheesh. Hegan

lived all his life cloistered with books in a world of agitation. With the outofdoor world he had no

understanding nor tolerance. In food and drink he was abstemious as a monk, while exercise was a thing

abhorrent. Daylight's friendships, in lieu of anything closer, were drinking friendships and roistering

friendships. And with the passing of the Sunday rides with Dede, he fell back more and more upon these for

diversion. The cocktail wall of inhibition he reared more assiduously than ever.

The big red motorcar was out more frequently now, while a stable hand was hired to give Bob exercise. In

his early San Francisco days, there had been intervals of easement between his deals, but in this present

biggest deal of all the strain was unremitting. Not in a month, or two, or three, could his huge land investment

be carried to a successful consummation. And so complete and widereaching was it that complications and

knotty situations constantly arose. Every day brought its problems, and when he had solved them in his

masterful way, he left the office in his big car, almost sighing with relief at anticipation of the approaching

double Martini. Rarely was he made tipsy. His constitution was too strong for that. Instead, he was that direst

of all drinkers, the steady drinker, deliberate and controlled, who averaged a far higher quantity of alcohol

than the irregular and violent drinker. For six weeks hardrunning he had seen nothing of Dede except in the

office, and there he resolutely refrained from making approaches. But by the seventh Sunday his hunger for

A heavy southeast gale was blowing, and squall after squall of rain and wind swept over the city. He could

not take his mind off of her, and a persistent picture came to him of her sitting by a window and sewing

feminine fripperies of some sort. When the time came for his first preluncheon cocktail to be served to him

Filled with a daring determination, he glanced at his note book for Dede's telephone number, and called for

At first it was her landlady's daughter who was raised, but in a minute he heard the voice he had been hungry

"I just wanted to tell you that I'm coming out to see you," he said. "I didn't want to break in on you without

He left the red car two blocks away and arrived on foot at the pretty, threestoried, shingled Berkeley house.

For an instant only, he was aware of an inward hesitancy, but the next moment he rang the bell. He knew that

what he was doing was in direct violation of her wishes, and that he was setting her a difficult task to receive

as a Sunday caller the multimillionaire and notorious Elam Harnish of newspaper fame. On the other hand,

the one thing he did not expect of her was what he would have termed "silly female capers."

She came herself to the door to receive him and shake hands with him. He hung his mackintosh and hat on

"They are busy in there," she said, indicating the parlor from which came the boisterous voices of young

people, and through the open door of which he could see several college youths. "So you will have to come

She led the way through the door opening out of the hall to the right, and, once inside, he stood awkwardly

rooted to the floor, gazing about him and at her and all the time trying not to gaze. In his perturbation he

failed to hear and see her invitation to a seat. So these were her quarters. the intimacy of it and her making no

fuss about it was startling, but it was no more than he would have expected of her. It was almost two rooms in

one, the one he was in evidently the sittingroom, and the one he could see into, the bedroom. Beyond an

oaken dressingtable, with an orderly litter of combs and brushes and dainty feminine knickknacks, there was

no sign of its being used as a bedroom. The broad couch, with a cover of old rose and banked high with

cushions, he decided must be the bed, but it was farthest from any experience of a civilized bed he had ever

Not that he saw much of detail in that awkward moment of standing. His general impression was one of

warmth and comfort and beauty. There were no carpets, and on the hardwood floor he caught a glimpse of

several wolf and coyote skins. What captured and perceptibly held his eye for a moment was a Crouched

Venus that stood on a Steinway upright against a background of mountainlion skin on the wall.

But it was Dede herself that smote most sharply upon sense and perception. He had always cherished the idea

that she was very much a womanthe lines of her figure, her hair, her eyes, her voice, and birdlike laughing

ways had all contributed to this; but here, in her own rooms, clad in some flowing, clinging gown, the

emphasis of sex was startling. He had been accustomed to her only in trim tailor suits and shirtwaists, or in

riding costume of velvet corduroy, and he was not prepared for this new revelation. She seemed so much

softer, so much more pliant, and tender, and lissome. She was a part of this atmosphere of quietude and

beauty. She fitted into it just as she had fitted in with the sober office furnishings.

He felt like an animal long denied food. His hunger for her welled up in him, and he proceeded to "wolf" the

dainty morsel before him. Here was no patience, no diplomacy. The straightest, direct way was none too

quick for him and, had he known it, the least unsuccessful way he could have chosen.

"Look here," he said, in a voice that shook with passion, "there's one thing I won't do, and that's propose to

you in the office. That's why I'm here. Dede Mason, I want you. I just want you."

While he spoke he advanced upon her, his black eyes burning with bright fire, his aroused blood swarthy in

So precipitate was he, that she had barely time to cry out her involuntary alarm and to step back, at the same

In contrast to him, the blood had suddenly left her cheeks. The hand that had warded his off and that still held

it, was trembling. She relaxed her fingers, and his arm dropped to his side. She wanted to say something, do

something, to pass on from the awkwardness of the situation, but no intelligent thought nor action came into

her mind. She was aware only of a desire to laugh. This impulse was party hysterical and partly spontaneous

humorthe latter growing from instant to instant. Amazing as the affair was, the ridiculous side of it was not

veiled to her. She felt like one who had suffered the terror of the onslaught of a murderous footpad only to

Daylight was the quicker to achieve action. "Oh, I know I'm a sure enough fool," he said. "II guess I'll sit

"I'm not afraid," she answered, with a smile, slipping down herself into a chair, beside which, on the floor,

stood a sewingbasket from which, Daylight noted, some white fluffy thing of lace and muslin overflowed.

"It's funny," Daylight sighed, almost with regret; "here I am, strong enough to bend you around and tie knots

in you. Here I am, used to having my will with man and beast and anything. And here I am sitting in this

chair, as weak and helpless as a little lamb. You sure take the starch out of me."

Dede vainly cudgeled her brains in quest of a reply to these remarks. Instead, her thought dwelt insistently

upon the significance of his stepping aside, in the middle of a violent proposal, in order to make irrelevant

remarks. What struck her was the man's certitude. So little did he doubt that he would have her, that he could

She noted his hand unconsciously slipping in the familiar way into the side coat pocket where she knew he

"You may smoke, if you want to," she said. He withdrew his hand with a jerk, as if something in the pocket

"No, I wasn't thinking of smoking. I was thinking of you. What's a man to do when he wants a woman but ask

her to marry him? That's all that I'm doing. I can't do it in style. I know that. But I can use straight English,

and that's good enough for me. I sure want you mighty bad, Miss Mason. You're in my mind 'most all the

"Mebbe it's best you should know a few things before you give me an answer," he went on, ignoring the fact

that the answer had already been given. "I never went after a woman before in my life, all reports to the

contrary not withstanding. The stuff you read about me in the papers and books, about me being a

ladykiller, is all wrong. There's not an iota of truth in it. I guess I've done more than my share of

cardplaying and whiskeydrinking, but women I've let alone. There was a woman that killed herself, but I

didn't know she wanted me that bad or else I'd have married hernot for love, but to keep her from killing

herself. She was the best of the boiling, but I never gave her any encouragement. I'm telling you all this

"Ladykiller! " he snorted. "Why, Miss Mason, I don't mind telling you that I've sure been scairt of women

all my life. You're the first one I've not been afraid of. That's the strange thing about it. I just plumb worship

you, and yet I'm not afraid of you. Mebbe it's because you're different from the women I know. You've never

chased me. Ladykiller! Why, I've been running away from ladies ever since I can remember, and I guess all

that saved me was that I was strong in the wind and that I never fell down and broke a leg or anything.

"I didn't ever want to get married until after I met you, and until a long time after I met you. I cottoned to you

from the start; but I never thought it would get as bad as marriage. Why, I can't get to sleep nights, thinking

He came to a stop and waited. She had taken the lace and muslin from the basket, possibly to settle her nerves

and wits, and was sewing upon it. As she was not looking at him, he devoured her with his eyes. He noted the

firm, efficient handshands that could control a horse like Bob, that could run a typewriter almost as fast as

a man could talk, that could sew on dainty garments, and that, doubtlessly, could play on the piano over there

in the corner. Another ultrafeminine detail he noticedher slippers. They were small and bronze. He had

never imagined she had such a small foot. Street shoes and riding boots were all that he had ever seen on her

feet, and they had given no advertisement of this. The bronze slippers fascinated him, and to them his eyes

A knock came at the door, which she answered. Daylight could not help hearing the conversation. She was

"Tell him to call up again in ten minutes," he heard her say, and the masculine pronoun caused in him a

flashing twinge of jealousy. Well, he decided, whoever it was, Burning Daylight would give him a run for his

money. The marvel to him was that a girl like Dede hadn't been married long since.

She came back, smiling to him, and resumed her sewing. His eyes wandered from the efficient hands to the

bronze slippers and back again, and he swore to himself that there were mighty few stenographers like her in

existence. That was because she must have come of pretty good stock, and had a pretty good raising. Nothing

else could explain these rooms of hers and the clothes she wore and the way she wore them.

This time she nodded, at the same time allowing the smile of amusement to play on her lips. But it was

amusement without contempt. The humorous side of a situation rarely appealed in vain to her.

"Well, that's something to go on," he announced. "You've got to make a start to get started. I just liked you at

first, and look what it's grown into. You recollect, you said you didn't like my way of life. Well, I've changed

it a heap. I ain't gambling like I used to. I've gone into what you called the legitimate, making two minutes

grow where one grew before, three hundred thousand folks where only a hundred thousand grew before. And

this time next year there'll be two million eucalyptus growing on the hills. Say do you like me more than the

He waited a moment for her to complete the sentence, failing which, he went on himself.

"I haven't an exaggerated opinion of myself, so I know I ain't bragging when I say I'll make a pretty good

husband. You'd find I was no hand at nagging and faultfinding. I can guess what it must be for a woman like

you to be independent. Well, you'd be independent as my wife. No strings on you. You could follow your

own sweet will, and nothing would be too good for you. I'd give you everything your heart desired"

"I don't know about that. I'd be straight and square, and live true. I don't hanker after divided affections."

"I don't mean that," she said. "Instead of giving yourself to your wife, you would give yourself to the three

hundred thousand people of Oakland, to your street railways and ferryroutes, to the two million trees on the

"You think so, but it would turn out differently." She suddenly became nervous. "We must stop this talk. It is

too much like attempting to drive a bargain. 'How much will you give?' 'I'll give so much.' 'I want more,' and

all that. I like you, but not enough to marry you, and I'll never like you enough to marry you."

"Oh, you don't understand," she cried wildly, beginning to lose selfcontrol"It's not that way I mean. I do

like you; the more I've known you the more I've liked you. And at the same time the more I've known you the

"Don't you see?" she hurried on. "I could have far easier married the Elam Harnish fresh from Klondike,

He shook his head slowly. "That's one too many for me. The more you know and like a man the less you

His eyes, quick with observation like an Indian's, darted about the room while she was out. The impression of

warmth and comfort and beauty predominated, though he was unable to analyze it; while the simplicity

delighted himexpensive simplicity, he decided, and most of it leftovers from the time her father went broke

and died. He had never before appreciated a plain hardwood floor with a couple of wolfskins; it sure beat all

the carpets in creation. He stared solemnly at a bookcase containing acCouple of hundred books. There was

Writing things and reading things were not the same as doing things, and himself primarily a man of action,

His gaze passed on from the Crouched Venus to a little teatable with all its fragile and exquisite accessories,

and to a shining copper kettle and copper chafingdish. Chafing dishes were not unknown to him, and he

wondered if she concocted suppers on this one for some of those University young men he had heard

whispers about. One or two watercolors on the wall made him conjecture that she had painted them herself.

There were photographs of horses and of old masters, and the trailing purple of a Burial of Christ held him

for a time. But ever his gaze returned to that Crouched Venus on the piano. To his homely, frontiertrained

mind, it seemed curious that a nice young woman should have such a bold, if not sinful, object on display in

her own room. But he reconciled himself to it by an act of faith. Since it was Dede, it must be eminently all

right. Evidently such things went along with culture. Larry Hegan had similar casts and photographs in his

bookcluttered quarters. But then, Larry Hegan was different. There was that hint of unhealth about him that

Daylight invariably sensed in his presence, while Dede, on the contrary, seemed always so robustly

wholesome, radiating an atmosphere compounded of the sun and wind and dust of the open road. And yet, if

such a clean, healthy woman as she went in for naked women crouching on her piano, it must be all right.

Dede made it all right. She could come pretty close to making anything all right. Besides, he didn't

She reentered the room, and as she crossed it to her chair, he admired the way she walked, while the bronze

"I'd like to ask you several questions," he began immediately "Are you thinking of marrying somebody?"

"Do you like anybody else more than you like me?that man at the 'phone just now, for instance?"

"There isn't anybody else. I don't know anybody I like well enough to marry. For that matter, I don't think I

Daylight ran his eyes over her, from her face to the tip of a bronze slipper, in a way that made the color

"It strikes me that you're the most marryingest woman that ever made a man sit up and take notice. And now

another question. You see, I've just got to locate the lay of the land. Is there anybody you like as much as you

"That's unfair," she said. "And if you stop and consider, you will find that you are doing the very thing you

disclaimednamely, nagging. I refuse to answer any more of your questions. Let us talk about other things.

Half an hour later, whirling along through the rain on Telegraph Avenue toward Oakland, Daylight smoked

one of his brownpaper cigarettes and reviewed what had taken place. It was not at all bad, was his summing

up, though there was much about it that was baffling. There was that liking him the more she knew him and

But the fact that she had refused him carried with it a certain elation. In refusing him she had refused his

thirty million dollars. That was going some for a ninety dollaramonth stenographer who had known better

ties. She wasn't after money, that was patent. Every woman he had encountered had seemed willing to

swallow him down for the sake of his money. Why, he had doubled his fortune, made fifteen millions, since

the day she first came to work for him, and behold, any willingness to marry him she might have possessed

"Gosh!" he muttered. "If I clean up a hundred million on this land deal she won't even be on speaking terms

But he could not smile the thing away. It remained to baffle him, that enigmatic statement of hers that she

could more easily have married the Elam Harnish fresh from the Klondike than the present Elam Harnish.

Well, he concluded, the thing to do was for him to become more like that oldtime Daylight who had come

down out of the North to try his luck at the bigger game. But that was impossible. He could not set back the

flight of time. Wishing wouldn't do it, and there was no other way. He might as well wish himself a boy

Another satisfaction he cuddled to himself from their interview. He had heard of stenographers before, who

refused their employers, and who invariably quit their positions immediately afterward. But Dede had not

even hinted at such a thing. No matter how baffling she was, there was no nonsensical silliness about her. She

was level headed. But, also, he had been levelheaded and was partly responsible for this. He hadn't taken

advantage of her in the office. True, he had twice overstepped the bounds, but he had not followed it up and

made a practice of it. She knew she could trust him. But in spite of all this he was confident that most young

women would have been silly enough to resign a position with a man they had turned down. And besides,

after he had put it to her in the right light, she had not been silly over his sending her brother to Germany.

"Gee!" he concluded, as the car drew up before his hotel. "If I'd only known it as I do now, I'd have popped

the question the first day she came to work. According to her sayso, that would have been the proper

moment. She likes me more and more, and the more she likes me the less she'd care to marry me! Now what

Once again, on a rainy Sunday, weeks afterward, Daylight proposed to Dede. As on the first time, he

restrained himself until his hunger for her overwhelmed him and swept him away in his red automobile to

Berkeley. He left the machine several blocks away and proceeded to the house on foot. But Dede was out, the

landlady's daughter told him, and added, on second thought, that she was out walking in the hills.

Furthermore, the young lady directed him where Dede's walk was most likely to extend.

Daylight obeyed the girl's instructions, and soon the street he followed passed the last house and itself ceased

where began the first steep slopes of the open hills. The air was damp with the oncoming of rain, for the

storm had not yet burst, though the rising wind proclaimed its imminence. As far as he could see, there was

no sign of Dede on the smooth, grassy hills. To the right, dipping down into a hollow and rising again, was a

large, fullgrown eucalyptus grove. Here all was noise and movement, the lofty, slender trunked trees

swaying back and forth in the wind and clashing their branches together. In the squalls, above all the minor

noises of creaking and groaning, arose a deep thrumming note as of a mighty harp. Knowing Dede as he did,

Daylight was confident that he would find her somewhere in this grove where the storm effects were so

pronounced. And find her he did, across the hollow and on the exposed crest of the opposing slope where the

There was something monotonous, though not tiresome, about the way Daylight proposed. Guiltless of

diplomacy subterfuge, he was as direct and gusty as the gale itself. had time neither for greeting nor apology.

"It's the same old thing," he said. "I want you and I've come for you. You've just got to have me, Dede, for

the more I think about it the more certain I am that you've got a Sneaking liking for me that's something more

He had shaken hands with her at the moment he began speaking, and he had continued to hold her hand.

Now, when she did not answer, she felt a light but firmly insistent pressure as of his drawing her to him.

Involuntarily, she halfyielded to him, her desire for the moment stronger than her will. Then suddenly she

"Then I copper your bet to lose." He was almost gay, now, for success was coming faster than his fondest

imagining. She liked him, without a doubt; and without a doubt she liked him well enough to let him hold her

For the first time a dark suspicion crossed Daylight's minda clew that explained everything.

The consternation in his voice and on his face was too much for her, and her laugh rang out, merry and

Daylight knew his answer, and, vexed with himself decided that action was more efficient than speech. So he

stepped between her and the wind and drew her so that she stood close in the shelter of him. An unusually

stiff squall blew about them and thrummed overhead in the treetops and both paused to listen. A shower of

flying leaves enveloped them, and hard on the heel of the wind came driving drops of rain. He looked down

on her and on her hair windblown about her face; and because of her closeness to him and of a fresher and

more poignant realization of what she meant to him, he trembled so that she was aware of it in the hand that

She suddenly leaned against him, bowing her head until it rested lightly upon his breast. And so they stood

while another squall, with flying leaves and scattered drops of rain, rattled past. With equal suddenness she

"Do you know," she said, "I prayed last night about you. I prayed that you would fail, that you would lose

Daylight stared his amazement at this cryptic utterance. "That sure beats me. I always said I got out of my

depth with women, and you've got me out of my depth now. Why you want me to lose everything, seeing as

"You didn't dast say you didn't. So, as I was saying: liking me, why you'd want me to go broke is clean

beyond my simple understanding. It's right in line with that other puzzler of yours, the

moreyoulikemethelessyouwanttomarryme one. Well, you've just got to explain, that's all."

His arms went around her and held her closely, and this time she did not resist. Her head was bowed, and he

had not see her face, yet he had a premonition that she was crying. He had learned the virtue of silence, and

he waited her will in the matter. Things had come to such a pass that she was bound to tell him something

"It might be better for me if I were. Then I could make a fool of myself and be unhappy for the rest of my

life. But my abominable common sense prevents. And that doesn't make me a bit happier, either."

"I'm still out of my depth and swimming feeble," Daylight said, after waiting vainly for her to go on. "You've

got to show me, and you ain't shown me yet. Your common sense and praying that I'd go broke is all up in the

air to me. Little woman, I just love you mighty hard, and I want you to marry me. That's straight and simple

She shook her head slowly, and then, as she talked, seemed to grow angry, sadly angry; and Daylight knew

"Then let me explain, and just as straight and simply as you have asked." She paused, as if casting about for a

beginning. "You are honest and straightforward. Do you want me to be honest and straightforward as a

woman is not supposed to be?to tell you things that will hurt you?to make confessions that ought to

"I would dearly like to marry you, but I am afraid. I am proud and humble at the same time that a man like

you should care for me. But you have too much money. There's where my abominable common sense steps

in. Even if we did marry, you could never be my manmy lover and my husband. You would be your

money's man. I know I am a foolish woman, but I want my man for myself. You would not be free for me.

Your money possesses you, taking your time, your thoughts, your energy, ever thing, bidding you go here

and go there, do this and do that. Don't you see? Perhaps it's pure silliness, but I feel that I can love much,

give muchgive all, and in return, though I don't want all, I want muchand I want much more than your

"And your money destroys you; it makes you less and less nice. I am not ashamed to say that I love you,

because I shall never marry you. And I loved you much when I did not know you at all, when you first came

down from Alaska and I first went into the office. You were my hero. You were the Burning Daylight of the

I don't see how any woman could have looked at you without loving youthen. But you don't look it now.

"Please, please, forgive me for hurting you. You wanted straight talk, and I am giving it to you. All these last

years you have been living unnaturally. You, a man of the open, have been cooping yourself up in the cities

with all that that means. You are not the same man at all, and your money is destroying you. You are

becoming something different, something not so healthy, not so clean, not so nice. Your money and your way

of life are doing it. You know it. You haven't the same body now that you had then. You are putting on flesh,

You are kind and genial with me, I know, but you are not kind and genial to all the world as you were then.

You have become harsh and cruel. And I know. Remember, I have studied you six days a week, month after

month, year after year; and I know more about the most insignificant parts of you than you know of all of me.

The cruelty is not only in your heart and thoughts, but it is there in face. It has put its lines there. I have

watched them come and grow. Your money, and the life it compels you to lead have done all this. You are

being brutalized and degraded. And this process can only go on and on until you are hopelessly destroyed"

He attempted to interrupt, but she stopped him, herself breathless and her voice trembling.

"No, no; let me finish utterly. I have done nothing but think, think, think, all these months, ever since you

came riding with me, and now that I have begun to speak I am going to speak all that I have in me. I do love

you, but I cannot marry you and destroy love. You are growing into a thing that I must in the end despise.

You can't help it. More than you can possibly love me, do you love this business game. This businessand

it's all perfectly useless, so far as you are concernedclaims all of you. I sometimes think it would be easier

to share you equitably with another woman than to share you with this business. I might have half of you, at

any rate. But this business would claim, not half of you, but ninetenths of you, or ninetynine hundredths.

"Remember, the meaning of marriage to me is not to get a man's money to spend. I want the man. You say

you want ME. And suppose I consented, but gave you only onehundredth part of me. Suppose there was

something else in my life that took the other ninetynine parts, and, furthermore, that ruined my figure, that

put pouches under my eyes and crowsfeet in the corners, that made me unbeautiful to look upon and that

made my spirit unbeautiful. Would you be satisfied with that onehundredth part of me? Yet that is all you

are offering me of yourself. Do you wonder that I won't marry you?that I can't?"

"It isn't that I am selfish. After all, love is giving, not receiving. But I see so clearly that all my giving could

not do you any good. You are like a sick man. You don't play business like other men. You play it heart and

and all of you. No matter what you believed and intended a wife would be only a brief diversion. There is that

magnificent Bob, eating his head off in the stable. You would buy me a beautiful mansion and leave me in it

to yawn my head off, or cry my eyes out because of my helplessness and inability to save you. This disease of

business would be corroding you and marring you all the time. You play it as you have played everything

else, as in Alaska you played the life of the trail. Nobody could be permitted to travel as fast and as far as

you, to work as hard or endure as much. You hold back nothing; you put all you've got into whatever you are

Her voice faltered and stopped, and a blush showed in her wet cheeks as her eyes fell before his.

She rested now, frankly and fairly, in the shelter of his arms, and both were oblivious to the gale that rushed

past them in quicker and stronger blasts. The big downpour of rain had not yet come, but the mistlike

squalls were more frequent. Daylight was openly perplexed, and he was still perplexed when he began to

"I'm stumped. I'm up a tree. I'm clean flabbergasted, Miss Masonor Dede, because I love to call you that

name. I'm free to confess there's a mighty big heap in what you say. As I understand it, your conclusion is

that you'd marry me if I hadn't a cent and if I wasn't getting fat. No, no; I'm not joking. I acknowledge the

corn, and that's just my way of boiling the matter down and summing it up. If I hadn't a cent, and if I was

living a healthy life with all the time in the world to love you and be your husband instead of being awash to

"That's all as clear as print, and you're correcter than I ever guessed before. You've sure opened my eyes a

few. But I'm stuck. What can I do? My business has sure roped, thrown, and branded me. I'm tied hand and

foot, and I can't get up and meander over green pastures. I'm like the man that got the bear by the tail. I can't

"I don't know what to do, but something's sure got to happenI can't lose you. I just can't. And I'm not going

to. Why, you're running business a close second right now. Business never kept me awake nights.

"You've left me no argument. I know I'm not the same man that came from Alaska. I couldn't hit the trail with

the dogs as I did in them days. I'm soft in my muscles, and my mind's gone hard. I used to respect men. I

despise them now. You see, I spent all my life in the open, and I reckon I'm an openair man. Why, I've got

the prettiest little ranch you ever laid eyes on, up in Glen Ellen. That's where I got stuck for that brickyard.

You recollect handling the correspondence. I only laid eyes on the ranch that one time, and I so fell in love

with it that I bought it there and then. I just rode around the hills, and was happy as a kid out of school. I'd be

a better man living in the country. The city doesn't make me better. You're plumb right there. I know it. But

suppose your prayer should be answered and I'd go clean broke and have to work for day's wages?"

"Suppose I had nothing left but that little ranch, and was satisfied to grow a few chickens and scratch a living

"But I'd have to be out ploughing once in a while, he warned, "or driving to town to get the grub."

"But there wouldn't be the office, at any rate, and no man to see, and men to see without end. But it is all

foolish and impossible, and we'll have to be starting back now if we're to escape the rain."

Then was the moment, among the trees, where they began the descent of the hill, that Daylight might have

drawn her closely to him and kissed her once. But he was too perplexed with the new thoughts she had put

into his head to take advantage of the situation. He merely caught her by the arm and helped her over the

"It's darn pretty country up there at Glen Ellen," he said meditatively. "I wish you could see it."

At the edge of the grove he suggested that it might be better for them to part there.

The wind was humming wildly in sharply recurrent gusts, but still the rain held off.

"Do you know," he said, "taking it by and large, it's the happiest day of my life." He took off his hat, and the

wind rippled and twisted his black hair as he went on solemnly, "And I'm sure grateful to God, or whoever or

whatever is responsible for your being on this earth. For you do like me heaps. It's been my joy to hear you

say so today. It's" He left the thought arrested, and his face assumed the familiar whimsical expression as

he murmured: "Dede, Dede, we've just got to get married. It's the only way, and trust to luck for it's coming

But the tears were threatening to rise in her eyes again, as she shook her head and turned and went up the

When the ferry system began to run, and the time between Oakland and San Francisco was demonstrated to

be cut in half, the tide of Daylight's terrific expenditure started to turn. Not that it really did turn, for he

promptly went into further investments. Thousands of lots in his residence tracts were sold, and thousands of

homes were being built. Factory sites also were selling, and business properties in the heart of Oakland. All

this tended to a steady appreciation in value of Daylight's huge holdings. But, as of old, he had his hunch and

was riding it. Already he had begun borrowing from the banks. The magnificent profits he made on the land

he sold were turned into more land, into more development; and instead of paying off old loans, he contracted

new ones. As he had pyramided in Dawson City, he now pyramided in Oakland; but he did it with the

knowledge that it was a stable enterprise rather than a risky placermining boom.

In a small way, other men were following his lead, buying and selling land and profiting by the improvement

work he was doing. But this was to be expected, and the small fortunes they were making at his expense did

not irritate him. There was an exception, however. One Simon Dolliver, with money to go in with, and with

cunning and courage to back it up, bade fair to become a several times millionaire at Daylight's expense.

Dolliver, too, pyramided, playing quickly and accurately, and keeping his money turning over and over. More

than once Daylight found him in the way, as he himself had got in the way of the Guggenhammers when they

Work on Daylight's dock system went on apace, yet was one of those enterprises that consumed money

dreadfully and that could not be accomplished as quickly as a ferry system. The engineering difficulties were

great, the dredging and filling a cyclopean task. The mere item of piling was anything but small. A good

average pile, by the time it was delivered on the ground, cost a twentydollar gold piece, and these piles were

used in unending thousands. All accessible groves of mature eucalyptus were used, and as well, great rafts of

Not content with manufacturing the electricity for his street railways in the oldfashioned way, in

powerhouses, Daylight organized the Sierra and Salvador Power Company. This immediately assumed large

proportions. Crossing the San Joaquin Valley on the way from the mountains, and plunging through the

Contra Costa hills, there were many towns, and even a robust city, that could be supplied with power, also

with light; and it became a street and houselighting project as well. As soon as the purchase of power sites

in the Sierras was rushed through, the survey parties were out and building operations begun.

And so it went. There were a thousand maws into which he poured unceasing streams of money. But it was

all so sound and legitimate, that Daylight, born gambler that he was, and with his clear, wide vision, could

not play softly and safely. It was a big opportunity, and to him there was only one way to play it, and that was

the big way. Nor did his one confidential adviser, Larry Hegan, aid him to caution. On the contrary, it was

Daylight who was compelled to veto the wilder visions of that able hasheesh dreamer. Not only did Daylight

borrow heavily from the banks and trust companies, but on several of his corporations he was compelled to

issue stock. He did this grudgingly however, and retained most of his big enterprises of his own. Among the

companies in which he reluctantly allowed the investing public to join were the Golden Gate Dock Company,

and Recreation Parks Company, the United Water Company, the Uncial Shipbuilding Company, and the

Sierra and Salvador Power Company. Nevertheless, between himself and Hegan, he retained the controlling

His affair with Dede Mason only seemed to languish. While delaying to grapple with the strange problem it

presented, his desire for her continued to grow. In his gambling simile, his conclusion was that Luck had

dealt him the most remarkable card in the deck, and that for years he had overlooked it. Love was the card,

and it beat them all. Love was the king card of trumps, the fifth ace, the joker in a game of tenderfoot poker.

It was the card of cards, and play it he would, to the limit, when the opening came. He could not see that

opening yet. The present game would have to play to some sort of a conclusion first.

Yet he could not shake from his brain and vision the warm recollection of those bronze slippers, that clinging

gown, and all the feminine softness and pliancy of Dede in her pretty Berkeley rooms. Once again, on a rainy

Sunday, he telephoned that he was coming. And, as has happened ever since man first looked upon woman

and called her good, again he played the blind force of male compulsion against the woman's secret weakness

to yield. Not that it was Daylight's way abjectly to beg and entreat. On the contrary, he was masterful in

whatever he did, but he had a trick of whimsical wheedling that Dede found harder to resist than the pleas of

a suppliant lover. It was not a happy scene in its outcome, for Dede, in the throes of her own desire, desperate

with weakness and at the same time with her better judgment hating her weakness cried out:

"You urge me to try a chance, to marry you now and trust to luck for it to come out right. And life is a

gamble say. Very well, let us gamble. Take a coin and toss it in the air. If it comes heads, I'll marry you. If it

A fire of mingled love and the passion of gambling came into Daylight's eyes. Involuntarily his hand started

for his pocket for the coin. Then it stopped, and the light in his eyes was troubled.

"Go on," she ordered sharply. "Don't delay, or I may change my mind, and you will lose the chance."

"Little woman." His similes were humorous, but there was no humor in their meaning. His thought was as

solemn as his voice. "Little woman, I'd gamble all the way from Creation to the Day of Judgment; I'd gamble

a golden harp against another man's halo; I'd toss for pennies on the front steps of the New Jerusalem or set

up a faro layout just outside the Pearly Gates; but I'll be everlastingly damned if I'll gamble on love. Love's

too big to me to take a chance on. Love's got to be a sure thing, and between you and me it is a sure thing. If

the odds was a hundred to one on my winning this flip, just the same, nary a flip."

In the spring of the year the Great Panic came on. The first warning was when the banks began calling in

their unprotected loans. Daylight promptly paid the first several of his personal notes that were presented;

then he divined that these demands but indicated the way the wind was going to blow, and that one of those

terrific financial storms he had heard about was soon to sweep over the United States. How terrific this

particular storm was to be he did not anticipate. Nevertheless, he took every precaution in his power, and had

Money grew tighter. Beginning with the crash of several of the greatest Eastern banking houses, the tightness

spread, until every bank in the country was calling in its credits. Daylight was caught, and caught because of

the fact that for the first time he had been playing the legitimate business game. In the old days, such a panic,

with the accompanying extreme shrinkage of values, would have been a golden harvest time for him. As it

was, he watched the gamblers, who had ridden the wave of prosperity and made preparation for the slump,

getting out from under and safely scurrying to cover or proceeding to reap a double harvest. Nothing

He saw the situation clearly. When the banks demanded that he pay his loans, he knew that the banks were in

sore need of the money. But he was in sorer need. And he knew that the banks did not want his collateral

which they held. It would do them no good. In such a tumbling of values was no time to sell. His collateral

was good, all of it, eminently sound and worth while; yet it was worthless at such a moment, when the one

unceasing cry was money, money, money. Finding him obdurate, the banks demanded more collateral, and as

the money pinch tightened they asked for two and even three times as much as had been originally accepted.

Sometimes Daylight yielded to these demands, but more often not, and always battling fiercely.

He fought as with clay behind a crumbling wall. All portions of the wall were menaced, and he went around

constantly strengthening the weakest parts with clay. This clay was money, and was applied, a sop here and a

sop there, as fast as it was needed, but only when it was directly needed. The strength of his position lay in

the Yerba Buena Ferry Company, the Consolidated Street Railways, and the United Water Company. Though

people were no longer buying residence lots and factory and business sites, they were compelled to ride on

his cars and ferryboats and to consume his water. When all the financial world was clamoring for money

and perishing through lack of it, the first of each month many thousands of dollars poured into his coffers

from the waterrates, and each day ten thousand dollars, in dime and nickels, came in from his street railways

Cash was what was wanted, and had he had the use of all this steady river of cash, all would have been well

with him. As it was, he had to fight continually for a portion of it. Improvement work ceased, and only

absolutely essential repairs were made. His fiercest fight was with the operating expenses, and this was a

fight that never ended. There was never any letup in his turning the thumbscrews of extended credit and

economy. From the big wholesale suppliers down through the salary list to office stationery and postage

stamps, he kept the thumbscrews turning. When his superintendents and heads of departments performed

prodigies of cutting down, he patted them on the back and demanded more. When they threw down their

"You are getting eight thousand dollars a year," he told Matthewson. "It's better pay than you ever got in your

life before. Your fortune is in the same sack with mine. You've got to stand for some of the strain and risk.

You've got personal credit in this town. Use it. Stand off butcher and baker and all the rest. Savvee? You're

drawing down something like six hundred and sixty dollars a month. I want that cash. From now on, stand

everybody off and draw down a hundred. I'll pay you interest on the rest till this blows over."

"Matthewson, who's this bookkeeper, Rogers? Your nephew? I thought so. He's pulling down eightyfive a

month. Afterthis let him draw thirtyfive. The forty can ride with me at interest."

"Impossible! " Matthewson cried. "He can't make ends meet on his salary as it is, and he has a wife and two

"Can't! Impossible! What in hell do you think I'm running? A home for feebleminded? Feeding and dressing

and wiping the little noses of a lot of idiots that can't take care of themselves? Not on your life. I'm hustling,

and now's the time that everybody that works for me has got to hustle. I want no fairweather birds holding

down my office chairs or anything else. This is nasty weather, damn nasty weather, and they've got to buck

into it just like me. There are ten thousand men out of work in Oakland right now, and sixty thousand more in

San Francisco. Your nephew, and everybody else on your payroll, can do as I say right now or quit. Savvee?

If any of them get stuck, you go around yourself and guarantee their credit with the butchers and grocers. And

you trim down that payroll accordingly. I've been carrying a few thousand folks that'll have to carry

"You say this filter's got to be replaced," he told his chief of the waterworks. "We'll see about it. Let the

people of Oakland drink mud for a change. It'll teach them to appreciate good water. Stop work at once. Get

those men off the payroll. Cancel all orders for material. The contractors will sue? Let 'em sue and be

damned. We'll be busted higher'n a kite or on easy street before they can get judgment."

"Take off that owl boat. Let the public roar and come home early to its wife. And there's that last car that

connects with the 12:45 boat at Twentysecond and Hastings. Cut it out. I can't run it for two or three

passengers. Let them take an earlier boat home or walk. This is no time for philanthropy. And you might as

well take off a few more cars in the rush hours. Let the straphangers pay. It's the straphangers that'll keep

And to another chief, who broke down under the excessive strain of retrenchment:

"You say I can't do that and can't do this. I'll just show you a few of the latest patterns in the canandcan't

line. You'll be compelled to resign? All right, if you think so I never saw the man yet that I was hard up for.

And when any man thinks I can't get along without him, I just show him the latest pattern in that line of

And so he fought and drove and bullied and even wheedled his way along. It was fight, fight, fight, and no

letup, from the first thing in the morning till nightfall. His private office saw throngs every day. All men

came to see him, or were ordered to come. Now it was an optimistic opinion on the panic, a funny story, a

serious business talk, or a straight takeitorleaveit blow from the shoulder. And there was nobody to

relieve him. It was a case of drive, drive, drive, and he alone could do the driving. And this went on day after

day, while the whole business world rocked around him and house after house crashed to the ground.

"It's all right, old man," he told Hegan every morning; and it was the same cheerful word that he passed out

all day long, except at such times when he was in the thick of fighting to have his will with persons and

Eight o'clock saw him at his desk each morning. By ten o'clock, it was into the machine and away for a round

of the banks. And usually in the machine with him was the ten thousand and more dollars that had been

earned by his ferries and railways the day before. This was for the weakest spot in the financial dike. And

with one bank president after another similar scenes were enacted. They were paralyzed with fear, and first of

Of course they were. The signs were already in the air. All that anybody had to do was to sit tight a little

longer and hold on. That was all. Money was already more active in the East. Look at the trading on Wall

That was the straw that showed the wind. Hadn't Ryan said so and so? and wasn't it reported that Morgan was

As for himself, weren't the streetrailway earnings increasing steadily? In spite of the panic, more and more

people were coming to Oakland right along. Movements were already beginning in real estate. He was

dickering even then to sell over a thousand of his suburban acres. Of course it was at a sacrifice, but it would

ease the strain on all of them and bolster up the fainthearted. That was the troublethe fainthearts. Had

there been no fainthearts there would have been no panic. There was that Eastern syndicate, negotiating

with him now to take the majority of the stock in the Sierra and Salvador Power Company off his hands. That

And if it was not cheery discourse, but prayer and entreaty or show down and fight on the part of the banks,

Daylight had to counter in kind. If they could bully, he could bully. If the favor he asked were refused, it

became the thing he demanded. And when it came down to raw and naked fighting, with the last veil of

But he knew, also, how and when to give in. When he saw the wall shaking and crumbling irretrievably at a

particular place, he patched it up with sops of cash from his three cashearning companies. If the banks went,

he went too. It was a case of their having to hold out. If they smashed and all the collateral they held of his

was thrown on the chaotic market, it would be the end. And so it was, as the time passed, that on occasion his

red motorcar carried, in addition to the daily cash, the most giltedged securities he possessed; namely, the

Ferry Company, United Water and Consolidated Railways. But he did this reluctantly, fighting inch by inch.

As he told the president of the Merchants San Antonio who made the plea of carrying so many others:

"They're small fry. Let them smash. I'm the king pin here. You've got more money to make out of me than

them. Of course, you're carrying too much, and you've got to choose, that's all. It's root hog or die for you or

them. I'm too strong to smash. You could only embarrass me and get yourself tangled up. Your way out is to

And it was Daylight, also, in this time of financial anarchy, who sized up Simon Dolliver's affairs and lent the

hand that sent that rival down in utter failure. The Golden Gate National was the keystone of Dolliver's

"Here I've been lending you a hand, and you now in the last ditch, with Dolliver riding on you and me all the

time. It don't go. You hear me, it don't go. Dolliver couldn't cough up eleven dollars to save you. Let him get

off and walk, and I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you the railway nickels for four daysthat's forty

thousand cash. And on the sixth of the month you can count on twenty thousand more from the Water

"It's dog eat dog, and I ain't overlooking any meat that's floating around," Daylight proclaimed that afternoon

to Hegan; and Simon Dolliver went the way of the unfortunate in the Great Panic who were caught with

Daylight's shifts and devices were amazing. Nothing however large or small, passed his keen sight

unobserved. The strain he was under was terrific. He no longer ate lunch. The days were too short, and his

noon hours and his office were as crowded as at any other time. By the end of the day he was exhausted, and,

as never before, he sought relief behind his wall of alcoholic inhibition. Straight to his hotel he was driven,

and straight to his rooms he went, where immediately was mixed for him the first of a series of double

Martinis. By dinner, his brain was well clouded and the panic forgotten. By bedtime, with the assistance of

Scotch whiskey, he was fullnot violently nor uproariously full, nor stupefied, but merely well under the

Next morning he awoke with parched lips and mouth, and with sensations of heaviness in his head which

quickly passed away. By eight o'clock he was at his desk, buckled down to the fight, by ten o'clock on his

personal round of the banks, and after that, without a moment's cessation, till nightfall, he was handling the

knotty tangles of industry, finance, and human nature that crowded upon him. And with nightfall it was back

to the hotel, the double Martinis and the Scotch; and this was his program day after day until the days ran into

Though Daylight appeared among his fellows hearty voiced, inexhaustible, spilling over with energy and

vitality, deep down he was a very weary man. And sometime under the liquor drug, snatches of wisdom came

to him far more lucidity than in his sober moments, as, for instance, one night, when he sat on the edge of the

bed with one shoe in his hand and meditated on Dede's aphorism to the effect that he could not sleep in more

than one bed at a time. Still holding the shoe, he looked at the array of horsehair bridles on the walls. Then,

carrying the shoe, he got up and solemnly counted them, journeying into the two adjoining rooms to complete

"The little woman's right. Only one bed at a time. One hundred and forty hair bridles, and nothing doing with

ary one of them. One bridle at a time! I can't ride one horse at a time. Poor old Bob. I'd better be sending you

out to pasture. Thirty million dollars, and a hundred million or nothing in sight, and what have I got to show

for it? There's lots of things money can't buy. It can't buy the little woman. It can't buy capacity. What's the

good of thirty millions when I ain't got room for more than a quart of cocktails a day? If I had a

hundredquartcocktail thirst, it'd be different. But one quartone measly little quart! Here I am, a thirty

times over millionaire, slaving harder every day than any dozen men that work for me, and all I get is two

meals that don't taste good, one bed, a quart of Martini, and a hundred and forty hair bridles to look at on the

He stared around at the array disconsolately. "Mr. Shoe, I'm sizzled. Good night."

Far worse than the controlled, steady drinker is the solitary drinker, and it was this that Daylight was

developing into. He rarely drank sociably any more, but in his own room, by himself. Returning weary from

each day's unremitting effort, he drugged himself to sleep, knowing that on the morrow he would rise up with

But the country did not recover with its wonted elasticity. Money did not become freer, though the casual

reader of Daylight's newspapers, as well as of all the other owned and subsidised newspapers in the country,

could only have concluded that the money tightness was over and that the panic was past history. All public

utterances were cheery and optimistic, but privately many of the utters were in desperate straits. The scenes

enacted in the privacy of Daylight's office, and of the meetings of his boards of directors, would have given

the lie to the editorials in his newspapers; as, for instance, when he addressed the big stockholders in the

Sierra and Salvador Power Company, the United Water Company, and the several other stock companies:

"You've got to dig. You've got a good thing, but you'll have to sacrifice in order to hold on. There ain't no use

spouting hard times explanations. Don't I know the hard times is on? Ain't that what you're here for? As I said

before, you've got to dig. I run the majority stock, and it's come to a case of assess. It's that or smash. If ever I

start going you won't know what struck you, I'll smash that hard. The small fry can let go, but you big ones

can't. This ship won't sink as long as you stay with her. But if you start to leave her, down you'll sure go

The big wholesale supply houses, the caterers for his hotels, and all the crowd that incessantly demanded to

be paid, had their hot halfhours with him. He summoned them to his office and displayed his latest patterns

"By God, you've got to carry me!" he told them. "If you think this is a pleasant little game of parlor whist and

that you can quit and go home whenever you want, you're plumb wrong. Look here, Watkins, you remarked

five minutes ago that you wouldn't stand for it. Now let me tell you a few. You're going to stand for it and

keep on standin's for it. You're going to continue supplying me and taking my paper until the pinch is over.

How you're going to do it is your trouble, not mine. You remember what I did to Klinkner and the Altamont

Trust Company? I know the inside of your business better than you do yourself, and if you try to drop me I'll

smash you. Even if I'd be going to smash myself, I'd find a minute to turn on you and bring you down with

me. It's sink or swim for all of us, and I reckon you'll find it to your interest to keep me on top the puddle."

Perhaps his bitterest fight was with the stockholders of the United Water Company, for it was practically the

whole of the gross earnings of this company that he voted to lend to himself and used to bolster up his wide

battle front. Yet he never pushed his arbitrary rule too far. Compelling sacrifice from the men whose fortunes

were tied up with his, nevertheless when any one of them was driven to the wall and was in dire need,

Daylight was there to help him back into the line. Only a strong man could have saved so complicated a

situation in such time of stress, and Daylight was that man. He turned and twisted, schemed and devised,

bludgeoned and bullied the weaker ones, kept the fainthearted in the fight, and had no mercy on the

And in the end, when early summer was on, everything began to mend. Came a day when Daylight did the

unprecedented. He left the office an hour earlier than usual, and for the reason that for the first time since the

panic there was not an item of work waiting to be done. He dropped into Hegan's private office, before

"Hegan, we're all hunkadory. We're pulling out of the financial pawnshop in fine shape, and we'll get out

without leaving one unredeemed pledge behind. The worst is over, and the end is in sight. Just a tight rein for

a couple more weeks, just a bit of a pinch or a flurry or so now and then, and we can let go and spit on our

For once he varied his program. Instead of going directly to his hotel, he started on a round of the bars and

cafes, drinking a cocktail here and a cocktail there, and two or three when he encountered men he knew. It

was after an hour or so of this that he dropped into the bar of the Parthenon for one last drink before going to

dinner. By this time all his being was pleasantly warmed by the alcohol, and he was in the most genial and

best of spirits. At the corner of the bar several young men were up to the old trick of resting their elbows and

attempting to force each other's hands down. One broadshouldered young giant never removed his elbow,

"It's Slosson," the barkeeper told him, in answer to his query. "He's the heavyhammer thrower at the U.C.

Broke all records this year, and the world's record on top of it. He's a husky all right all right."

The young man laughed and locked hands with him; and to Daylight's astonishment it was his own hand that

"Hold on," he muttered. "Just one more flutter. I reckon I wasn't just ready that time."

Again the hands locked. It happened quickly. The offensive attack of Daylight's muscles slipped instantly

into defense, and, resisting vainly, his hand was forced over and down. Daylight was dazed. It had been no

trick. The skill was equal, or, if anything, the superior skill had been his. Strength, sheer strength, had done it.

He called for the drinks, and, still dazed and pondering, held up his own arm, and looked at it as at some new

strange thing. He did not know this arm. It certainly was not the arm he had carried around with him all the

years. The old arm? Why, it would have been play to turn down that young husky's. But this armhe

continued to look at it with such dubious perplexity as to bring a roar of laughter from the young men.

This laughter aroused him. He joined in it at first, and then his face slowly grew grave. He leaned toward the

"Son," he said, "let me whisper a secret. Get out of here and quit drinking before you begin."

"You listen to your dad, and let him say a few. I'm a young man myself, only I ain't. Let me tell you, several

years ago for me to turn your hand down would have been like committing assault and battery on a

Slosson looked his incredulity, while the others grinned and clustered around Daylight encouragingly.

"Son, I ain't given to preaching. This is the first time I ever come to the penitent form, and you put me there

yourselfhard. I've seen a few in my time, and I ain't fastidious so as you can notice it. But let me tell you

right not that I'm worth the devil alone knows how many millions, and that I'd sure give it all, right here on

the bar, to turn down your hand. Which means I'd give the whole shooting match just to be back where I was

before I quit sleeping under the stars and come into the hencoops of cities to drink cocktails and lift up my

feet and ride. Son, that's that's the matter with me, and that's the way I feel about it. The game ain't worth the

candle. You just take care of yourself, and roll my advice over once in a while. Good night."

He turned and lurched out of the place, the moral effect of his utterance largely spoiled by the fact that he was

Still in a daze, Daylight made to his hotel, accomplished his dinner, and prepared for bed.

"The damned young whippersnapper!" he muttered. "Put my hand down easy as you please. My hand!"

He held up the offending member and regarded it with stupid wonder. The hand that had never been beaten!

The hand that had made the Circle City giants wince! And a kid from college, with a laugh on his face, had

put it downtwice! Dede was right. He was not the same man. The situation would bear more serious

looking into than he had ever given it. But this was not the time. In the morning, after a good sleep, he would

Daylight awoke with the familiar parched mouth and lips and throat, took a long drink of water from the

pitcher beside his bed, and gathered up the train of thought where he had left it the night before. He reviewed

the easement of the financial strain. Things were mending at last. While the going was still rough, the greatest

dangers were already past. As he had told Hegan, a tight rein and careful playing were all that was needed

now. Flurries and dangers were bound to come, but not so grave as the ones they had already weathered. He

had been hit hard, but he was coming through without broken bones, which was more than Simon Dolliver

and many another could say. And not one of his business friends had been ruined. He had compelled them to

His mind moved on to the incident at the corner of the bar of the Parthenon, when the young athlete had

turned his hand down. He was no longer stunned by the event, but he was shocked and grieved, as only a

strong man can be, at this passing of his strength. And the issue was too clear for him to dodge, even with

himself. He knew why his hand had gone down. Not because he was an old man. He was just in the first flush

of his prime, and, by rights, it was the hand of the hammerthrower which should have gone down. Daylight

knew that he had taken liberties with himself. He had always looked upon this strength of his as permanent,

and here, for years, it had been steadily oozing from him. As he had diagnosed it, he had come in from under

the stars to roost in the coops of cities. He had almost forgotten how to walk. He had lifted up his feet and

been ridden around in automobiles, cabs and carriages, and electric cars. He had not exercised, and he had

And was it worth it? What did all his money mean after all? Dede was right. It could buy him no more than

one bed at a time, and at the same time it made him the abjectest of slaves. It tied him fast. He was tied by it

right now. Even if he so desired, he could not lie abed this very day. His money called him. The office

whistle would soon blow, and he must answer it. The early sunshine was streaming through his windowa

fine day for a ride in the hills on Bob, with Dede beside him on her Mab. Yet all his millions could not buy

him this one day. One of those flurries might come along, and he had to be on the spot to meet it. Thirty

millions! And they were powerless to persuade Dede to ride on MabMab, whom he had bought, and who

was unused and growing fat on pasture. What were thirty millions when they could not buy a man a ride with

the girl he loved? Thirty millions!that made him come here and go there, that rode upon him like so many

millstones, that destroyed him while they grew, that put their foot down and prevented him from winning this

Which was better? he asked himself. All this was Dede's own thought. It was what she had meant when she

prayed he would go broke. He held up his offending right arm. It wasn't the same old arm. Of course she

could not love that arm and that body as she had loved the strong, clean arm and body of years before. He

didn't like that arm and body himself. A young whippersnapper had been able to take liberties with it. It had

gone back on him. He sat up suddenly. No, by God, he had gone back on it! He had gone back on himself. He

had gone back on Dede. She was right, a thousand times right, and she had sense enough to know it, sense

He got out of bed and looked at himself in the long mirror on the wardrobe door. He wasn't pretty. The

oldtime lean cheeks were gone. These were heavy, seeming to hang down by their own weight. He looked

for the lines of cruelty Dede had spoken of, and he found them, and he found the harshness in the eyes as

well, the eyes that were muddy now after all the cocktails of the night before, and of the months and years

before. He looked at the clearly defined pouches that showed under his eyes, and they've shocked him. He

rolled up the sleeve of his pajamas. No wonder the hammerthrower had put his hand down. Those weren't

muscles. A rising tide of fat had submerged them. He stripped off the pajama coat. Again he was shocked,

this time but the bulk of his body. It wasn't pretty. The lean stomach had become a paunch. The ridged

He sat down on the bed, and through his mind drifted pictures of his youthful excellence, of the hardships he

had endured over other men, of the Indians and dogs he had run off their legs in the heartbreaking days and

nights on the Alaskan trail, of the feats of strength that had made him king over a husky race of frontiersmen.

And this was age. Then there drifted across the field of vision of his mind's eye the old man he had

encountered at Glen Ellen, corning up the hillside through the fires of sunset, whiteheaded and

whitebearded, eightyfour, in his hand the pail of foaming milk and in his face all the warm glow and

content of the passing summer day. That had been age. "Yes siree, eightyfour, and spryer than most," he

could hear the old man say. "And I ain't loafed none. I walked across the Plains with an oxteam and fit

Next he remembered the old woman of the chaparral, pressing grapes in her mountain clearing; and

Ferguson, the little man who had scuttled into the road like a rabbit, the onetime managing editor of a great

newspaper, who was content to live in the chaparral along with his spring of mountain water and his

handreared and manicured fruit trees. Ferguson had solved a problem. A weakling and an alcoholic, he had

run away from the doctors and the chickencoop of a city, and soaked up health like a thirsty sponge. Well,

Daylight pondered, if a sick man whom the doctors had given up could develop into a healthy farm laborer,

what couldn't a merely stout man like himself do under similar circumstances? He caught a vision of his body

with all its youthful excellence returned, and thought of Dede, and sat down suddenly on the bed, startled by

He did not sit long. His mind, working in its customary way, like a steel trap, canvassed the idea in all its

bearings. It was bigbigger than anything he had faced before. And he faced it squarely, picked it up in his

two hands and turned it over and around and looked at it. The simplicity of it delighted him. He chuckled

over it, reached his decision, and began to dress. Midway in the dressing he stopped in order to use the

"Don't come to the office this morning," he said. "I'm coming out to see you for a moment." He called up

others. He ordered his motorcar. To Jones he gave instructions for the forwarding of Bob and Wolf to Glen

Ellen. Hegan he surprised by asking him to look up the deed of the Glen Ellen ranch and make out a new one

in Dede Mason's name. "Who?" Hegan demanded. "Dede Mason," Daylight replied imperturbably the 'phone

Half an hour later he was flying out to Berkeley. And for the first time the big red car halted directly before

the house. Dede offered to receive him in the parlor, but he shook his head and nodded toward her rooms.

As the door closed, his arms went out and around her. Then he stood with his hands on her shoulders and

"Dede, if I tell you, flat and straight, that I'm going up to live on that ranch at Glen Ellen, that I ain't taking a

cent with me, that I'm going to scratch for every bite I eat, and that I ain't going to play ary a card at the

She gave a glad little cry, and he nestled her in closely. But the next moment she had thrust herself out from

"And you ain't answered my proposition, though I guess no answer is necessary. We're just going to get

married right away and start. I've sent Bob and Wolf along already. When will you be ready?"

Dede could not forbear to smile. "My, what a hurricane of a man it is. I'm quite blown away. And you haven't

"Look here, Dede, this is what cardsharps call a showdown. No more philandering and frills and

longdistance sparring between you and me. We're just going to talk straight out in meetingthe truth, the

whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Now you answer some questions for me, and then I'll answer yours."

He paused. "Well, I've got only one question after all: Do you love me enough to marry me?"

"No buts," he broke in sharply. "This is a showdown. When I say marry, I mean what I told you at first, that

She looked at him for a moment, then her lids dropped, and all of her seemed to advertise consent.

"Come on, then, let's start." The muscles of his legs tensed involuntarily as if he were about to lead her to the

door. "My auto's waiting outside. There's nothing to delay excepting getting on your hat."

"You haven't answered my questions. How is this possible? How can you leave your business? Has anything

"No, nothing's happened yet, but it's going to, blame quick. I've taken your preaching to heart, and I've come

to the penitent form. You are my Lord God, and I'm sure going to serve you. The rest can go to thunder. You

were sure right. I've been the slave to my money, and since I can't serve two masters I'm letting the money

slide. I'd sooner have you than all the money in the world, that's all." Again he held her closely in his arms.

"And I want to tell you a few more. I've taken my last drink. You're marrying a whiskeysoak, but your

husband won't be that. He's going to grow into another man so quick you won't know him. A couple of

months from now, up there in Glen Ellen, you'll wake up some morning and find you've got a perfect stranger

in the house with you, and you'll have to get introduced to him all over again. You'll say, 'I'm Mrs. Harnish,

who are you?" And I'll say, 'I'm Elam Harnish's younger brother. I've just arrived from Alaska to attend the

funeral.' 'What funeral?' you'll say. And I'll say, 'Why, the funeral of that goodfornothing, gambling,

whiskeydrinking Burning Daylightthe man that died of fatty degeneration of the heart from sitting in

night and day at the business game 'Yes ma'am,' I'll say, 'he's sure a gone 'coon, but I've come to take his

place and make you happy. And now, ma'am, if you'll allow me, I'll just meander down to the pasture and

Again he caught her hand and made as if to start with her for the door. When she resisted, he bent and kissed

"I'm sure hungry for you, little woman," he murmured "You make thirty millions look like thirty cents."

"Do sit down and be sensible," she urged, her cheeks flushed, the golden light in her eyes burning more

But Daylight was bent on having his way, and when he sat down it was with her beside him and his arm

"'Yes, ma'am,' I'll say, 'Burning Daylight was a pretty good cuss, but it's better that he's gone. He quit rolling

up in his rabbitskins and sleeping in the snow, and went to living in a chickencoop. He lifted up his legs

and quit walking and working, and took to existing on Martini cocktails and Scotch whiskey. He thought he

loved you, ma'am, and he did his best, but he loved his cocktails more, and he loved his money more, and

himself more, and 'most everything else more than he did you.' And then I'll say, 'Ma'am, you just run your

eyes over me and see how different I am. I ain't got a cocktail thirst, and all the money I got is a dollar and

forty cents and I've got to buy a new ax, the last one being plumb wore out, and I can love you just about

eleven times as much as your first husband did. You see, ma'am, he went all to fat. And there ain't ary ounce

of fat on me.' And I'll roll up my sleeve and show you, and say, 'Mrs. Harnish, after having experience with

being married to that old fat moneybags, do youall mind marrying a slim young fellow like me?' And

you'll just wipe a tear away for poor old Daylight, and kind of lean toward me with a willing expression in

your eye, and then I'll blush maybe some, being a young fellow, and put my arm around you, like that, and

thenwhy, then I'll up and marry my brother's widow, and go out and do the chores while she's cooking a

"But you haven't answered my questions," she reproached him, as she emerged, rosy and radiant, from the

"I want to know how all this is possible? How you are able to leave your business at a time like this? What

you meant by saying that something was going to happen quickly? I" She hesitated and blushed. "I

"Let's go and get married," he urged, all the whimsicality of his utterance duplicated in his eyes. "You know

I've got to make way for that husky young brother of mine, and I ain't got long to live." She made an

"You see, it's like this, Dede. I've been working like forty horses ever since this blamed panic set in, and all

the time some of those ideas you'd given me were getting ready to sprout. Well, they sprouted this morning,

that's all. I started to get up, expecting to go to the office as usual. But I didn't go to the office. All that

sprouting took place there and then. The sun was shining in the window, and I knew it was a fine day in the

hills. And I knew I wanted to ride in the hills with you just about thirty million times more than I wanted to

go to the office. And I knew all the time it was impossible. And why? Because of the office. The office

wouldn't let me. All my money reared right up on its hind legs and got in the way and wouldn't let me. It's a

"And then I made up my mind that I was to the dividing of the ways. One way led to the office. The other

And I took the Berkeley road. I'm never going to set foot in the office again. That's all gone, finished, over

and done with, and I'm letting it slide clean to smash and then some. My mind's set on this. You see, I've got

religion, and it's sure the oldtime religion; it's love and you, and it's older than the oldest religion in the

"I mean just that. I'm wiping the slate clean. I'm letting it all go to smash. When them thirty million dollars

stood up to my face and said I couldn't go out with you in the hills today, I knew the time had come for me

to put my foot down. And I'm putting it down. I've got you, and my strength to work for you, and that little

ranch in Sonoma. That's all I want, and that's all I'm going to save out, along with Bob and Wolf, a suit case

and a hundred and forty hair bridles. All the rest goes, and good riddance. It's that much junk."

"Just what I haven't been telling you. It IS necessary. If that money thinks it can stand up right to my face and

"No, no; be serious," Dede broke in. "I don't mean that, and you know it. What I want to know is, from a

"You bet it isn't necessary. That's the point of it. I'm not letting go of it because I'm licked to a standstill by

the panic and have got to let go. I'm firing it out when I've licked the panic and am winning, hands down.

That just shows how little I think of it. It's you that counts, little woman, and I make my play accordingly."

"Call me that again," he murmured ecstatically. "It's sure sweeter than the chink of millions."

"Oh, yes, I do," he assured her. "I'm winning the dearest wish of my heart. Why, your little finger is worth

"I was never more sensible in my lie. I know what I want, and I'm going to get it. I want you and the open air.

I want a little ranchhouse in one of the prettiest bits of country God ever made, and I want to do the chores

around that ranchhousemilk cows, and chop wood, and curry horses, and plough the ground, and all the

rest of it; and I want you there in the ranchhouse with me. I'm plumb tired of everything else, and clean

wore out. And I'm sure the luckiest man alive, for I've got what money can't buy. I've got you, and thirty

A knock at the door interrupted him, and he was left to stare delightedly at the Crouched Venus and on

"It is Mr. Hegan," she said, on returning. "He is holding the line. He says it is important."

"Please tell Mr. Hegan to hang up. I'm done with the office and I don't want to hear anything about anything."

"He refuses to hang up. He told me to tell you that Unwin is in the office now, waiting to see you, and

Harrison, too. Mr. Hegan said that Grimshaw and Hodgkins are in trouble. That it looks as if they are going

It was startling information. Both Unwin and Harrison represented big banking corporations, and Daylight

knew that if the house of Grimshaw and Hodgkins went it would precipitate a number of failures and start a

flurry of serious dimensions. But Daylight smiled, and shook his head, and mimicked the stereotyped office

"Miss Mason, you will kindly tell Mr. Hegan that there is nothing doing and to hang up."

"Say it again'' he cried. "Say it again, and a dozen Grimshaws and Hodgkins can smash!"

"You let Hegan hang on to that line till he's tired. We can't be wasting a second on him on a day like this.

He's only in love with books and things, but I've got a real live woman in my arms that's loving me all the

"But I know something of the fight you have been making," Dede contended. "If you stop now, all the work

you have done, everything, will be destroyed. You have no right to do it. You can't do it."

"Nothing will be destroyed, Dede, nothing. You don't understand this business game. It's done on paper.

Don't you see? Where's the gold I dug out of Klondike? Why, it's in twentydollar gold pieces, in gold

watches, in wedding rings. No matter what happens to me, the twentydollar pieces, the watches, and the

wedding rings remain. Suppose I died right now. It wouldn't affect the gold one iota. It's sure the same with

this present situation. All I stand for is paper. I've got the paper for thousands of acres of land. All right. Burn

up the paper, and burn me along with it. The land remains, don't it? The rain falls on it, the seeds sprout in it,

the trees grow out of it, the houses stand on it, the electric cars run over it. It's paper that business is run on. I

lose my paper, or I lose my life, it's all the same; it won't alter one grain of sand in all that land, or twist one

"Nothing is going to be lostnot one pile out of the docks, not one railroad spike, not one ounce of steam

out of the gauge of a ferryboat. The cars will go on running, whether I hold the paper or somebody else

holds it. The tide has set toward Oakland. People are beginning to pour in. We're selling building lots again.

There is no stopping that tide. No matter what happens to me or the paper, them three hundred thousand folks

are coming in the same. And there'll be cars to carry them around, and houses to hold them, and good water

By this time Hegan had arrived in an automobile. The honk of it came in through the open window, and they

saw, it stop alongside the big red machine. In the car were Unwin and Harrison, while Jones sat with the

"I'll see Hegan," Daylight told Dede. "There's no need for the rest. They can wait in the machine."

"Good morning, Larry," was Daylight's greeting. "Sit down and rest your feet. You sure seem to be in a

"I am," the little Irishman snapped back. "Grimshaw and Hodgkins are going to smash if something isn't done

"I've had no dealings with Grimshaw and Hodgkins. I don't owe them anything. Besides, I'm going to smash

myself. Look here, Larry, you know me. You know when I make up my mind I mean it. Well, I've sure made

up my mind. I'm tired of the whole game. I'm letting go of it as fast as I can, and a smash is the quickest way

Hegan stared at his chief, then passed his horrorstricken gaze on to Dede, who nodded in sympathy.

"So let her smash, Larry," Daylight went on. "All you've got to do is to protect yourself and all our friends.

Now you listen to me while I tell you what to do. Everything is in good shape to do it. Nobody must get hurt.

Everybody that stood by me must come through without damage. All the back wages and salaries must be

paid pronto. All the money I've switched away from the water company, the street cars, and the ferries must

be switched back. And you won't get hurt yourself none. Every company you got stock in will come

"You are crazy, Daylight!" the little lawyer cried out. "This is all babbling lunacy. What is the matter with

"I sure have!" Daylight smiled reply. "And I'm now coughing it up. I'm sick of living in a city and playing

businessI'm going off to the sunshine, and the country, and the green grass. And Dede, here, is going with

"Congratulate thethe devil! " Hegan spluttered. "I'm not going to stand for this sort of foolishness."

"Oh, yes, you are; because if you don't there'll be a bigger smash and some folks will most likely get hurt.

You're worth a million or more yourself, now, and if you listen to me you come through with a whole skin. I

want to get hurt, and get hurt to the limit. That's what I'm looking for, and there's no man or bunch of men

"Hold on there, Larry." For the first time Daylight's voice was sharp, while all the old lines of cruelty in his

face stood forth. "Miss Mason is going to be my wife, and while I don't mind your talking to her all you want,

you've got to use a different tone of voice or you'll be heading for a hospital, which will sure be an

unexpected sort of smash. And let me tell you one other thing. Thisall is my doing. She says I'm crazy, too."

"There'll be temporary receiverships, of course," Daylight advised; "but they won't bother none or last long.

What you must do immediately is to save everybodythe men that have been letting their wages ride with

me, all the creditors, and all the concerns that have stood by. There's the wad of land that New Jersey crowd

has been dickering for. They'll take all of a couple of thousand acres and will close now if you give them half

a chance. That Fairmount section is the cream of it, and they'll dig up as high as a thousand dollars an acre for

a part of it. That'll help out some. That fivehundred acre tract beyond, you'll be lucky if they pay two

Dede, who had been scarcely listening, seemed abruptly to make up her mind, and stepped forward where she

confronted the two men. Her face was pale, but set with determination, so that Daylight, looking at it, was

"Wait," she said. "I want to say something. Elam, if you do this insane thing, I won't marry you. I refuse to

"Wait!" she again interrupted. "And if you don't do this thing, I will marry you."

"Let me get this proposition clear." Daylight spoke with exasperating slowness and deliberation. "As I

understand it, if I keep right on at the business game, you'll sure marry me? You'll marry me if I keep on

"No, little woman, I won't do it. It won't work, and you know it yourself. I want youall of you; and to get it

I'll have to give you all of myself, and there'll be darn little of myself left over to give if I stay with the

business game. Why, Dede, with you on the ranch with me, I'm sure of youand of myself. I'm sure of you,

anyway. You can talk will or won't all you want, but you're sure going to marry me just the same. And now,

Larry, you'd better be going. I'll be at the hotel in a little while, and since I'm not going a step into the office

again, bring all papers to sign and the rest over to my rooms. And you can get me on the 'phone there any

He stood up as a sign for Hegan to go. The latter was plainly stunned. He also rose to his feet, but stood

"Buck up, Larry. You're always talking about the wonders of human nature, and here I am giving you another

sample of it and you ain't appreciating it. I'm a bigger dreamer than you are, that's all, and I'm sure dreaming

what's coming true. It's the biggest, best dream I ever had, and I'm going after it to get it"

"Sureby losing all I've got that I don't want. But I'm hanging on to them hundred and forty hair bridles just

the same. Now you'd better hustle out to Unwin and Harrison and get on down town. I'll be at the hotel, and

"And now, little woman, you needn't come to the office any more. Consider yourself discharged. And

remember I was your employer, so you've got to come to me for recommendation, and if you're not real good,

I won't give you one. In the meantime, you just rest up and think about what things you want to pack, because

we'll just about have to set up housekeeping on your stuffleastways, the front part of the house."

She attempted to take her hand away, but he closed on it with a protecting, fatherly clasp.

"Will you be straight and honest? All right, here goes. Which would you sooner haveme and the money, or

"You see, I know your answer, Dede, and there's nothing more to say. Here's where you and I quit and hit the

high places for Sonoma. You make up your mind what you want to pack, and I'll have some men out here in a

couple of days to do it for you. It will be about the last work anybody else ever does for us. You and I will do

"Elam, won't you be reasonable? There is time to reconsider. I can telephone down and catch Mr. Hegan as

"Why, I'm the only reasonable man in the bunch right now," he rejoined. "Look at meas calm as you

please, and as happy as a king, while they're fluttering around like a lot of cranky hens whose heads are liable

"In which case I reckon I'd have to hold you in my arms some more and sort of soothe you down," he

threatened back. "And now I'm going to go. It's too bad you got rid of Mab. You could have sent her up to the

"You needn't send those men. There will be no packing, because I am not going to marry you."

Three days later, Daylight rode to Berkeley in his red car. It was for the last time, for on the morrow the big

machine passed into another's possession. It had been a strenuous three days, for his smash had been the

biggest the panic had precipitated in California. The papers had been filled with it, and a great cry of

indignation had gone up from the very men who later found that Daylight had fully protected their interests. It

was these facts, coming slowly to light, that gave rise to the widely repeated charge that Daylight had gone

insane. It was the unanimous conviction among business men that no sane man could possibly behave in such

fashion. On the other hand, neither his prolonged steady drinking nor his affair with Dede became public, so

the only conclusion attainable was that the wild financier from Alaska had gone lunatic. And Daylight had

He halted the automobile before Dede's door, and met her with his same rushing tactics, enclosing her in his

arms before a word could be uttered. Not until afterward, when she had recovered herself from him and got

"I've done it," he announced. "You've seen the newspapers, of course. I'm plumb cleaned out, and I've just

called around to find out what day you feel like starting for Glen Ellen. It'll have to be soon, for it's real

expensive living in Oakland these days. My board at the hotel is only paid to the end of the week, and I can't

afford to stay after that. And beginning with tomorrow I've got to use the street cars, and they sure eat up the

He paused, and waited, and looked at her. Indecision and trouble showed on her face. Then the smile he knew

so well began to grow on her lips and in her eyes, until she threw back her head and laughed in the old

"Dear Elam," she whispered; "dear Elam." And of herself, for the first time, she kissed him.

"Your eyes are all gold right now," he said. "I can look in them and tell just how much you love me."

"They have been all gold for you, Elam, for a long time. I think, on our little ranch, they will always be all

"Your hair has gold in it, too, a sort of fiery gold." He turned her face suddenly and held it between his hands

and looked long into her eyes. "And your eyes were full of gold only the other day, when you said you

"You would have your will," she confessed. "But I couldn't be a party to such madness. All that money was

yours, not mine. But I was loving you all the time, Elam, for the great big boy you are, breaking the

thirtymillion toy with which you had grown tired of playing. And when I said no, I knew all the time it was

yes. And I am sure that my eyes were golden all the time. I had only one fear, and that was that you would

fail to lose everything. Because, dear, I knew I should marry you anyway, and I did so want just you and the

ranch and Bob and Wolf and those horsehair bridles. Shall I tell you a secret? As soon as you left, I

She hid her face against his breast for an instant, and then looked at him again, gladly radiant.

"You see, Elam, in spite of what my lips said, my mind was made up then. II simply had to marry you. But

I was praying you would succeed in losing everything. And so I tried to find what had become of Mab. But

the man had sold her and did not know what had become of her. You see, I wanted to ride with you over the

Glen Ellen hills, on Mab and you on Bob, just as I had ridden with you through the Piedmont hills."

The disclosure of Mab's whereabouts trembled on Daylight's lips, but he forbore.

"Now, I've got an idea," Daylight said, hastening to get the conversation on less perilous ground. "We're

running away from cities, and you have no kith nor kin, so it don't seem exactly right that we should start off

by getting married in a city. So here's the idea: I'll run up to the ranch and get things in shape around the

house and give the caretaker his walkingpapers. You follow me in a couple of days, coming on the morning

train. I'll have the preacher fixed and waiting. And here's another idea. You bring your riding togs in a suit

case. And as soon as the ceremony's over, you can go to the hotel and change. Then out you come, and you

find me waiting with a couple of horses, and we'll ride over the landscape so as you can see the prettiest parts

of the ranch the first thing. And she's sure pretty, that ranch. And now that it's settled, I'll be waiting for you

"Well, ma'am," he drawled, "I sure hate to burn daylight. And you and I have burned a heap of daylight.

Two days later, Daylight stood waiting outside the little Glen Ellen hotel. The ceremony was over, and he had

left Dede to go inside and change into her ridinghabit while he brought the horses. He held them now, Bob

and Mab, and in the shadow of the wateringtrough Wolf lay and looked on. Already two days of ardent

California sun had touched with new fires the ancient bronze in Daylight's face. But warmer still was the

glow that came into his cheeks and burned in his eyes as he saw Dede coming out the door, ridingwhip in

hand, clad in the familiar corduroy skirt and leggings of the old Piedmont days. There was warmth and glow

in her own face as she answered his gaze and glanced on past him to the horses. Then she saw Mab. But her

It was almost a prayer, but a prayer that included a thousand meanings Daylight strove to feign sheepishness,

but his heart was singing too wild a song for mere playfulness. All things had been in the naming of his

She stepped forward and caressed the mare, and again turned and looked at the man, and breathed:

And all that was in her voice was in her eyes, and in them Daylight glimpsed a profundity deeper and wider

than any speech or thoughtthe whole vast inarticulate mystery and wonder of sex and love.

Again he strove for playfulness of speech, but it was too great a moment for even love fractiousness to enter

in. Neither spoke. She gathered the reins, and, bending, Daylight received her foot in his hand. She sprang, as

he lifted and gained the saddle. The next moment he was mounted and beside her, and, with Wolf sliding

along ahead in his typical wolftrot, they went up the hill that led out of towntwo lovers on two chestnut

sorrel steeds, riding out and away to honeymoon through the warm summer day. Daylight felt himself

drunken as with wine. He was at the topmost pinnacle of life. Higher than this no man could climb nor had

ever climbed. It was his day of days, his lovetime and his matingtime, and all crowned by this virginal

possession of a mate who had said "Oh, Elam," as she had said it, and looked at him out of her soul as she

They cleared the crest of the hill, and he watched the joy mount in her face as she gazed on the sweet, fresh

land. He pointed out the group of heavily wooded knolls across the rolling stretches of ripe grain.

"They're ours," he said. "And they're only a sample of the ranch. Wait till you see the big canon. There are

'coons down there, and back here on the Sonoma there are mink. And deer! why, that mountain's sure thick

with them, and I reckon we can scare up a mountainlion if we want to real hard. And, say, there's a little

meadow=well, I ain't going to tell you another word. You wait and see for yourself."

They turned in at the gate, where the road to the claypit crossed the fields, and both sniffed with delight as

the warm aroma of the ripe hay rose in their nostrils. As on his first visit, the larks were uttering their rich

notes and fluttering up before the horses until the woods and the flowerscattered glades were reached, when

"We're on our land now," he said, as they left the hayfield behind. "It runs right across country over the

As on the first day, he turned aside from the claypit and worked through the woods to the left, passing the

first spring and jumping the horses over the ruined remnants of the stakeandrider fence. From here on,

Dede was in an unending ecstasy. By the spring that gurgled among the redwoods grew another great wild

lily, bearing on its slender stalk the prodigious outburst of white waxen bells. This time he did not dismount,

but led the way to the deep canon where the stream had cut a passage among the knolls. He had been at work

here, and a steep and slippery horse trail now crossed the creek, so they rode up beyond, through the somber

redwood twilight, and, farther on, through a tangled wood of oak and madrono. They came to a small clearing

She bent in her saddle, plucked a stalk of the ripe grain, and nibbled it between her teeth.

And throughout the ride she continued to utter cries and ejaculations of surprise and delight.

"And you never told me all this!" she reproached him, as they looked across the little clearing and over the

"Come," he said; and they turned and went back through the forest shade, crossed the stream and came to the

Here, also, where the way led up the tangle of the steep hill, he had cut a rough horse trail. As they forced

their way up the zigzags, they caught glimpses out and down through the sea of foliage. Yet always were

their farthest glimpses stopped by the closing vistas of green, and, yet always, as they climbed, did the forest

roof arch overhead, with only here and there rifts that permitted shattered shafts of sunlight to penetrate. And

all about them were ferns, a score of varieties, from the tiny goldbacks and maidenhair to huge brakes six

Below them, as they mounted, they glimpsed great gnarled trunks and branches of ancient trees, and above

"It is as if we are swimmers," she said, "rising out of a deep pool of green tranquillity. Up above is the sky

They started their horses, but a dogtooth violet, shouldering amongst the maidenhair, caught her eye and

They cleared the crest and emerged from the pool as if into another world, for now they were in the thicket of

velvettrunked young madronos and looking down the open, sunwashed hillside, across the nodding

grasses, to the drifts of blue and white nemophilae that carpeted the tiny meadow on either side the tiny

And Daylight, who knew his weakness in the use of the particular word sure, knew that she had repeated it

They crossed the stream and took the cattle track over the low rocky hill and through the scrub forest of

manzanita, till they emerged on the next tiny valley with its meadowbordered streamlet.

"If we don't run into some quail pretty soon, I'll be surprised some," Daylight said.

And as the words left his lips there was a wild series of explosive thrumming as the old quail arose from all

about Wolf, while the young ones scuttled for safety and disappeared miraculously before the spectators' very

He showed her the hawk's nest he had found in the lightningshattered top of the redwood, and she

discovered a woodrat's nest which he had not seen before. Next they took the old woodroad and came out

on the dozen acres of clearing where the wine grapes grew in the winecolored volcanic soil. Then they

followed the cowpath through more woods and thickets and scattered glades, and dropped down the hillside

to where the farmhouse, poised on the lip of the big canon, came into view only when they were right upon

Dede stood on the wide porch that ran the length of the house while Daylight tied the horses. To Dede it was

very quiet. It was the dry, warm, breathless calm of California midday. All the world seemed dozing. From

somewhere pigeons were cooing lazily. With a deep sigh of satisfaction, Wolf, who had drunk his fill at all

the streams along the way, dropped down in the cool shadow of the porch. She heard the footsteps of

Daylight returning, and caught her breath with a quick intake. He took her hand in his, and, as he turned the

doorknob, felt her hesitate. Then he put his arm around her; the door swung open, and together they passed

Many persons, themselves citybred and cityreared, have fled to the soil and succeeded in winning great

happiness. In such cases they have succeeded only by going through a process of savage disillusionment. But

with Dede and Daylight it was different. They had both been born on the soil, and they knew its naked

simplicities and rawer ways. They were like two persons, after far wandering, who had merely come home

again. There was less of the unexpected in their dealings with nature, while theirs was all the delight of

reminiscence. What might appear sordid and squalid to the fastidiously reared, was to them eminently

wholesome and natural. The commerce of nature was to them no unknown and untried trade. They made

fewer mistakes. They already knew, and it was a joy to remember what they had forgotten.

And another thing they learned was that it was easier for one who has gorged at the fleshpots to content

himself with the meagerness of a crust, than for one who has known only the crust.

Not that their life was meagre. It was that they found keener delights and deeper satisfactions in little things.

Daylight, who had played the game in its biggest and most fantastic aspects, found that here, on the slopes of

Sonoma Mountain, it was still the same old game. Man had still work to perform, forces to combat, obstacles

to overcome. When he experimented in a small way at raising a few pigeons for market, he found no less zest

in calculating in squabs than formerly when he had calculated in millions. Achievement was no less

achievement, while the process of it seemed more rational and received the sanction of his reason.

The domestic cat that had gone wild and that preyed on his pigeons, he found, by the comparative standard,

to be of no less paramount menace than a Charles Klinkner in the field of finance, trying to raid him for

several millions. The hawks and weasels and 'coons were so many Dowsetts, Lettons, and Guggenhammers

that struck at him secretly. The sea of wild vegetation that tossed its surf against the boundaries of all his

clearings and that sometimes crept in and flooded in a single week was no mean enemy to contend with and

subdue. His fatsoiled vegetablegarden in the nook of hills that failed of its best was a problem of

engrossing importance, and when he had solved it by putting in draintile, the joy of the achievement was

ever with him. He never worked in it and found the soil unpacked and tractable without experiencing the

There was the matter of the plumbing. He was enabled to purchase the materials through a lucky sale of a

number of his hair bridles. The work he did himself, though more than once he was forced to call in Dede to

hold tight with a pipewrench. And in the end, when the bathtub and the stationary tubs were installed and

in working order, he could scarcely tear himself away from the contemplation of what his hands had wrought.

The first evening, missing him, Dede sought and found him, lamp in hand, staring with silent glee at the tubs.

He rubbed his hand over their smooth wooden lips and laughed aloud, and was as shamefaced as any boy

It was this adventure in woodworking and plumbing that brought about the building of the little workshop,

where he slowly gathered a collection of loved tools. And he, who in the old days, out of his millions, could

purchase immediately whatever he might desire, learned the new joy of the possession that follows upon rigid

economy and desire long delayed. He waited three months before daring the extravagance of a Yankee

screwdriver, and his glee in the marvelous little mechanism was so keen that Dede conceived forthright a

great idea. For six months she saved her eggmoney, which was hers by right of allotment, and on his

birthday presented him with a turninglathe of wonderful simplicity and multifarious efficiencies. And their

mutual delight in the tool, which was his, was only equalled by their delight in Mab's first foal, which was

It was not until the second summer that Daylight built the huge fireplace that outrivalled Ferguson's across

the valley. For all these things took time, and Dede and Daylight were not in a hurry. Theirs was not the

mistake of the average citydweller who flees in ultramodern innocence to the soil. They did not essay too

much. Neither did they have a mortgage to clear, nor did they desire wealth. They wanted little in the way of

food, and they had no rent to pay. So they planned unambiguously, reserving their lives for each other and for

the compensations of countrydwelling from which the average countrydweller is barred. From Ferguson's

example, too, they profited much. Here was a man who asked for but the plainest fare; who ministered to his

own simple needs with his own hands; who worked out as a laborer only when he needed money to buy

books and magazines; and who saw to it that the major portion of his waking time was for enjoyment. He

loved to loaf long afternoons in the shade with his books or to be up with the dawn and away over the hills.

On occasion he accompanied Dede and Daylight on deer hunts through the wild canons and over the rugged

steeps of Hood Mountain, though more often Dede and Daylight were out alone. This riding was one of their

chief joys. Every wrinkle and crease in the hills they explored, and they came to know every secret spring and

hidden dell in the whole surrounding wall of the valley. They learned all the trails and cowpaths; but

nothing delighted them more than to essay the roughest and most impossible rides, where they were glad to

crouch and crawl along the narrowest deerruns, Bob and Mab struggling and forcing their way along

behind. Back from their rides they brought the seeds and bulbs of wild flowers to plant in favoring nooks on

the ranch. Along the foot trail which led down the side of the big canon to the intake of the waterpipe, they

established their fernery. It was not a formal affair, and the ferns were left to themselves. Dede and Daylight

merely introduced new ones from time to time, changing them from one wild habitat to another. It was the

same with the wild lilac, which Daylight had sent to him from Mendocino County. It became part of the

wildness of the ranch, and, after being helped for a season, was left to its own devices. they used to gather the

seeds of the California poppy and scatter them over their own acres, so that the orangecolored blossoms

spangled the fields of mountain hay and prospered in flaming drifts in the fence corners and along the edges

Dede, who had a fondness for cattails, established a fringe of them along the meadow stream, where they

were left to fight it out with the watercress. And when the latter was threatened with extinction, Daylight

developed one of the shaded springs into his watercress garden and declared war upon any invading cattail.

On her wedding day Dede had discovered a long dogtooth violet by the zigzag trail above the redwood

spring, and here she continued to plant more and more. The open hillside above the tiny meadow became a

colony of Mariposa lilies. This was due mainly to her efforts, while Daylight, who rode with a shorthandled

ax on his saddlebow, cleared the little manzanita wood on the rocky hill of all its dead and dying and

They did not labor at these tasks. Nor were they tasks. Merely in passing, they paused, from time to time, and

lent a hand to nature. These flowers and shrubs grew of themselves, and their presence was no violation of

the natural environment. The man and the woman made no effort to introduce a flower or shrub that did not

of its own right belong. Nor did they protect them from their enemies. The horses and the colts and the cows

and the calves ran at pasture among them or over them, and flower or shrub had to take its chance. But the

beasts were not noticeably destructive, for they were few in number and the ranch was large.

On the other hand, Daylight could have taken in fully a dozen horses to pasture, which would have earned

him a dollar and a half per head per month. But this he refused to do, because of the devastation such close

Ferguson came over to celebrate the housewarming that followed the achievement of the great stone

fireplace. Daylight had ridden across the valley more than once to confer with him about the undertaking, and

he was the only other present at the sacred function of lighting the first fire. By removing a partition, Daylight

had thrown two rooms into one, and this was the big livingroom where Dede's treasures were placedher

books, and paintings and photographs, her piano, the Crouched Venus, the chafingdish and all its glittering

accessories. Already, in addition to her own wildanimal skins, were those of deer and coyote and one

mountainlion which Daylight had killed. The tanning he had done himself, slowly and laboriously, in

He handed the match to Dede, who struck it and lighted the fire. The crisp manzanita wood crackled as the

flames leaped up and assailed the dry bark of the larger logs. Then she leaned in the shelter of her husband's

arm, and the three stood and looked in breathless suspense. When Ferguson gave judgment, it was with

He shook Daylight's hand ecstatically, and Daylight shook his with equal fervor, and, bending, kissed Dede

on the lips. They were as exultant over the success of their simple handiwork as any great captain at

astonishing victory. In Ferguson's eyes was actually a suspicious moisture while the woman pressed even

more closely against the man whose achievement it was. He caught her up suddenly in his arms and whirled

And while the flames in the fireplace that worked, the triumphant strains of the Twelfth Mass rolled forth.

Daylight had made no assertion of total abstinence though he had not taken a drink for months after the day

he resolved to let his business go to smash. Soon he proved himself strong enough to dare to take a drink

without taking a second. On the other hand, with his coming to live in the country, had passed all desire and

need for drink. He felt no yearning for it, and even forgot that it existed. Yet he refused to be afraid of it, and

in town, on occasion, when invited by the storekeeper, would reply: "All right, son. If my taking a drink will

But such a drink began no desire for a second. It made no impression. He was too profoundly strong to be

affected by a thimbleful. As he had prophesied to Dede, Burning Daylight, the city financier, had died a quick

death on the ranch, and his younger brother, the Daylight from Alaska, had taken his place. The threatened

inundation of fat had subsided, and all his oldtime Indian leanness and of muscle had returned. So, likewise,

did the old slight hollows in his cheeks come back. For him they indicated the pink of physical condition. He

became the acknowledged strong man of Sonoma Valley, the heaviest lifter and hardest winded among a

husky race of farmer folk. And once a year he celebrated his birthday in the oldfashioned frontier way,

challenging all the valley to come up the hill to the ranch and be put on its back. And a fair portion of the

valley responded, brought the womenfolk and children along, and picnicked for the day.

At first, when in need of ready cash, he had followed Ferguson's example of working at day's labor; but he

was not long in gravitating to a form of work that was more stimulating and more satisfying, and that allowed

him even more time for Dede and the ranch and the perpetual riding through the hills. Having been

challenged by the blacksmith, in a spirit of banter, to attempt the breaking of a certain incorrigible colt, he

succeeded so signally as to earn quite a reputation as a horsebreaker. And soon he was able to earn whatever

A sugar king, whose breeding farm and training stables were at Caliente, three miles away, sent for him in

time of need, and, before the year was out, offered him the management of the stables. But Daylight smiled

and shook his head. Furthermore, he refused to undertake the breaking of as many animals as were offered.

"I'm sure not going to die from overwork," he assured Dede; and he accepted such work only when he had to

have money. Later, he fenced off a small run in the pasture, where, from time to time, he took in a limited

"We've got the ranch and each other," he told his wife, "and I'd sooner ride with you to Hood Mountain any

day than earn forty dollars. You can't buy sunsets, and loving wives, and cool spring water, and such

folderols, with forty dollars; and forty million dollars can't buy back for me one day that I didn't ride with you

His life was eminently wholesome and natural. Early to bed, he slept like an infant and was up with the dawn.

Always with something to do, and with a thousand little things that enticed but did not clamor, he was

himself never overdone. Nevertheless, there were times when both he and Dede were not above confessing

Sometimes, when he had accumulated a little money, and when the season favored, they would mount their

horses, with saddlebags behind, and ride away over the wall of the valley and down into the other valleys.

When night fell, they put up at the first convenient farm or village, and on the morrow they would ride on,

without definite plan, merely continuing to ride on, day after day, until their money gave out and they were

compelled to return. On such trips they would be gone anywhere from a week to ten days or two weeks, and

They even planned ambitiously some day when they were disgracefully prosperous, to ride all the way up to

Daylight's boyhood home in Eastern Oregon, stopping on the way at Dede's girlhood home in Siskiyou. And

all the joys of anticipation were theirs a thousand times as they contemplated the detailed delights of this

One day, stopping to mail a letter at the Glen Ellen post office, they were hailed by the blacksmith.

"Say, Daylight," he said, "a young fellow named Slosson sends you his regards. He came through in an auto,

on the way to Santa Rosa. He wanted to know if you didn't live hereabouts, but the crowd with him was in a

hurry. So he sent you his regards and said to tell you he'd taken your advice and was still going on breaking

"Slosson?" he meditated, "Slosson? That must be the hammerthrower. He put my hand down twice, the

young scamp." He turned suddenly to Dede. "Say, it's only twelve miles to Santa Rosa, and the horses are

She divined what was in his mind, of which his twinkling eyes and sheepish, boyish grin gave sufficient

There was little difficulty, once in Santa Rosa, of finding Slosson. He and his party had registered at the

Oberlin Hotel, and Daylight encountered the young hammerthrower himself in the office.

"Look here, son," Daylight announced, as soon as he had introduced Dede, "I've come to go you another

Slosson smiled and accepted. The two men faced each other, the elbows of their right arms on the counter,

"You're the first man that ever succeeded in doing it," he said. "Let's try it again."

"Sure," Daylight answered. "And don't forget, son, that you're the first man that put mine down. That's why I

Again they clasped hands, and again Slosson's hand went down. He was a broadshouldered, heavymuscled

young giant, at least half a head taller than Daylight, and he frankly expressed his chagrin and asked for a

third trial. This time he steeled himself to the effort, and for a moment the issue was in doubt. With flushed

face and set teeth he met the other's strength till his crackling muscles failed him. The air exploded sharply

from his tensed lungs, as he relaxed in surrender, and the hand dropped limply down.

"You're too many for me," he confessed. "I only hope you'll keep out of the hammerthrowing game."

"We might compromise, and each stay in his own class. You stick to hammerthrowing, and I'll go on

"Say," he called out, as Daylight and Dede, astride their horses, were preparing to depart. "Saydo you mind

"Sure, son. You're welcome to a flutter any time. Though I give you fair warning that you'll have to go some.

You'll have to train up, for I'm ploughing and chopping wood and breaking colts these days."

Now and again, on the way home, Dede could hear her big boyhusband chuckling gleefully. As they halted

their horses on the top of the divide out of Bennett Valley, in order to watch the sunset, he ranged alongside

"Little woman," he said, "you're sure responsible for it all. And I leave it to you, if all the money in creation is

worth as much as one arm like that when it's got a sweet little woman like this to go around."

For of all his delights in the new life, Dede was his greatest. As he explained to her more than once, he had

been afraid of love all his life only in the end to come to find it the greatest thing in the world. Not alone were

the two well mated, but in coming to live on the ranch they had selected the best soil in which their love

would prosper. In spite of her books and music, there was in her a wholesome simplicity and love of the open

and natural, while Daylight, in every fiber of him, was essentially an openair man.

Of one thing in Dede, Daylight never got over marveling about, and that was her efficient handsthe hands

that he had first seen taking down flying shorthand notes and ticking away at the typewriter; the hands that

were firm to hold a magnificent brute like Bob, that wonderfully flashed over the keys of the piano, that were

unhesitant in household tasks, and that were twin miracles to caress and to run rippling fingers through his

hair. But Daylight was not unduly uxorious. He lived his man's life just as she lived her woman's life. There

was proper division of labor in the work they individually performed. But the whole was entwined and woven

into a fabric of mutual interest and consideration. He was as deeply interested in her cooking and her music

as she was in his agricultural adventures in the vegetable garden. And he, who resolutely declined to die of

In this connection, using his man's judgment and putting his man's foot down, he refused to allow her to be

burdened with the entertaining of guests. For guests they had, especially in the warm, long summers, and

usually they were her friends from the city, who were put to camp in tents which they cared for themselves,

and where, like true campers, they had also to cook for themselves. Perhaps only in California, where

everybody knows camp life, would such a program have been possible. But Daylight's steadfast contention

was that his wife should not become cook, waitress, and chambermaid because she did not happen to possess

a household of servants. On the other hand, chafingdish suppers in the big livingroom for their camping

guests were a common happening, at which times Daylight allotted them their chores and saw that they were

performed. For one who stopped only for the night it was different. Likewise it was different with her brother,

back from Germany, and again able to sit a horse. On his vacations he became the third in the family, and to

him was given the building of the fires, the sweeping, and the washing of the dishes.

Daylight devoted himself to the lightening of Dede's labors, and it was her brother who incited him to utilize

the splendid waterpower of the ranch that was running to waste. It required Daylight's breaking of extra

horses to pay for the materials, and the brother devoted a three weeks' vacation to assisting, and together they

installed a Pelting wheel. Besides sawing wood and turning his lathe and grindstone, Daylight connected the

power with the churn; but his great triumph was when he put his arm around Dede's waist and led her out to

inspect a washingmachine, run by the Pelton wheel, which really worked and really washed clothes.

Dede and Ferguson, between them, after a patient struggle, taught Daylight poetry, so that in the end he might

have been often seen, sitting slack in the saddle and dropping down the mountain trails through the

sunflecked woods, chanting aloud Kipling's "Tomlinson," or, when sharpening his ax, singing into the

whirling grindstone Henley's "Song of the Sword." Not that he ever became consummately literary in the way

his two teachers were. Beyond "Fra Lippo Lippi" and "Caliban and Setebos," he found nothing in Browning,

while George Meredith was ever his despair. It was of his own initiative, however, that he invested in a

violin, and practised so assiduously that in time he and Dede beguiled many a happy hour playing together

So all went well with this wellmated pair. Time never dragged. There were always new wonderful mornings

and still cool twilights at the end of day; and ever a thousand interests claimed him, and his interests were

shared by her. More thoroughly than he knew, had he come to a comprehension of the relativity of things. In

this new game he played he found in little things all the intensities of gratification and desire that he had

found in the frenzied big things when he was a power and rocked half a continent with the fury of the blows

he struck. With head and hand, at risk of life and limb, to bit and break a wild colt and win it to the service of

man, was to him no less great an achievement. And this new table on which he played the game was clean.

Neither lying, nor cheating, nor hypocrisy was here. The other game had made for decay and death, while this

new one made for clean strength and life. And so he was content, with Dede at his side, to watch the

procession of the days and seasons from the farmhouse perched on the canonlip; to ride through crisp

frosty mornings or under burning summer suns; and to shelter in the big room where blazed the logs in the

fireplace he had built, while outside the world shuddered and struggled in the stormclasp of a southeaster.

Once only Dede asked him if he ever regretted, and his answer was to crush her in his arms and smother her

"Little woman, even if you did cost thirty millions, you are sure the cheapest necessity of life I ever indulged

in." And then he added, "Yes, I do have one regret, and a monstrous big one, too. I'd sure like to have the

winning of you all over again. I'd like to go sneaking around the Piedmont hills looking for you. I'd like to

meander into those rooms of yours at Berkeley for the first time. And there's no use talking, I'm plumb

soaking with regret that I can't put my arms around you again that time you leaned your head on my breast

But there came the day, one year, in early April, when Dede sat in an easy chair on the porch, sewing on

certain small garments, while Daylight read aloud to her. It was in the afternoon, and a bright sun was shining

down on a world of new green. Along the irrigation channels of the vegetable garden streams of water were

flowing, and now and again Daylight broke off from his reading to run out and change the flow of water.

Also, he was teasingly interested in the certain small garments on which Dede worked, while she was

radiantly happy over them, though at times, when his tender fun was too insistent, she was rosily confused or

From where they sat they could look out over the world. Like the curve of a skirting blade, the Valley of the

Moon stretched before them, dotted with farmhouses and varied by pasturelands, hayfields, and

vineyards. Beyond rose the wall of the valley, every crease and wrinkle of which Dede and Daylight knew,

and at one place, where the sun struck squarely, the white dump of the abandoned mine burned like a jewel.

In the foreground, in the paddock by the barn, was Mab, full of pretty anxieties for the early spring foal that

staggered about her on tottery legs. The air shimmered with heat, and altogether it was a lazy, basking day.

Quail whistled to their young from the thicketed hillside behind the house. there was a gentle cooing of

pigeons, and from the green depths of the big canon arose the sobbing wood note of a mourning dove. Once,

there was a warning chorus from the foraging hens and a wild rush for cover, as a hawk, high in the blue, cast

It was this, perhaps, that aroused old hunting memories in Wolf. At any rate, Dede and Daylight became

aware of excitement in the paddock, and saw harmlessly reenacted a grim old tragedy of the Younger World.

Curiously eager, velvetfooted and silent as a ghost, sliding and gliding and crouching, the dog that was mere

domesticated wolf stalked the enticing bit of young life that Mab had brought so recently into the world. And

the mare, her own ancient instincts aroused and quivering, circled ever between the foal and this menace of

the wild young days when all her ancestry had known fear of him and his hunting brethren. Once, she whirled

and tried to kick him, but usually she strove to strike him with her forehoofs, or rushed upon him with open

mouth and ears laid back in an effort to crunch his backbone between her teeth. And the wolfdog, with ears

flattened down and crouching, would slide silkily away, only to circle up to the foal from the other side and

give cause to the mare for new alarm. Then Daylight, urged on by Dede's solicitude, uttered a low threatening

cry; and Wolf, drooping and sagging in all the body of him in token of his instant return to man's allegiance,

It was a few minutes later that Daylight, breaking off from his reading to change the streams of irrigation,

found that the water had ceased flowing. He shouldered a pick and shovel, took a hammer and a pipewrench

"I reckon I'll have to go down and dig the pipe out," he told her. "It's that slide that's threatened all winter. I

"Don't you read ahead, now," he warned, as he passed around the house and took the trail that led down the

Halfway down the trail, he came upon the slide. It was a small affair, only a few tons of earth and crumbling

rock; but, starting from fifty feet above, it had struck the water pipe with force sufficient to break it at a

connection. Before proceeding to work, he glanced up the path of the slide, and he glanced with the eye of the

earthtrained miner. And he saw what made his eyes startle and cease for the moment from questing farther.

His glance moved on up the steep broken surface, and across it from side to side. Here and there, in places,

small twisted manzanitas were rooted precariously, but in the main, save for weeds and grass, that portion of

the canon was bare. There were signs of a surface that had shifted often as the rains poured a flow of rich

And as the old hunting instincts had aroused that day in the wolfdog, so in him recrudesced all the old hot

desire of goldhunting. Dropping the hammer and pipewrench, but retaining pick and shovel, he climbed up

the slide to where a vague line of outputting but mostly soilcovered rock could be seen. It was all but

indiscernible, but his practised eye had sketched the hidden formation which it signified. Here and there,

along this wall of the vein, he attacked the crumbling rock with the pick and shoveled the encumbering soil

away. Several times he examined this rock. So soft was some of it that he could break it in his fingers.

Shifting a dozen feet higher up, he again attacked with pick and shovel. And this time, when he rubbed the

soil from a chunk of rock and looked, he straightened up suddenly, gasping with delight. And then, like a deer

at a drinking pool in fear of its enemies, he flung a quick glance around to see if any eye were gazing upon

him. He grinned at his own foolishness and returned to his examination of the chunk. A slant of sunlight fell

"From the grass roots down," he muttered in an awestricken voice, as he swung his pick into the yielding

He seemed to undergo a transformation. No quart of cocktails had ever put such a flame in his cheeks nor

such a fire in his eyes. As he worked, he was caught up in the old passion that had ruled most of his life. A

frenzy seized him that markedly increased from moment to moment. He worked like a madman, till he panted

from his exertions and the sweat dripped from his face to the ground. He quested across the face of the slide

to the opposite wall of the vein and back again. And, midway, he dug down through the red volcanic earth

that had washed from the disintegrating hill above, until he uncovered quartz, rotten quartz, that broke and

Sometimes he started small slides of earth that covered up his work and compelled him to dig again. Once, he

was swept fifty feet down the canonside; but he floundered and scrambled up again without pausing for

breath. He hit upon quartz that was so rotten that it was almost like clay, and here the gold was richer than

ever. It was a veritable treasure chamber. For a hundred feet up and down he traced the walls of the vein. He

even climbed over the canonlip to look along the brow of the hill for signs of the outcrop. But that could

He toiled on in the same mad haste, until exhaustion and an intolerable ache in his back compelled him to

pause. He straightened up with even a richer piece of goldladen quartz. Stooping, the sweat from his

forehead had fallen to the ground. It now ran into his eyes, blinding him. He wiped it from him with the back

It would run thirty thousand to the ton, fifty thousand, anything he knew that. And as he gazed upon the

yellow lure, and panted for air, and wiped the sweat away, his quick vision leaped and set to work. He saw

the spurtrack that must run up from the valley and across the upland pastures, and he ran the grades and

built the bridge that would span the canon, until it was real before his eyes. Across the canon was the place

for the mill, and there he erected it; and he erected, also, the endless chain of buckets, suspended from a cable

and operated by gravity, that would carry the ore across the canon to the quartzcrusher. Likewise, the whole

mine grew before him and beneath himtunnels, shafts, and galleries, and hoisting plants. The blasts of the

miners were in his ears, and from across the canon he could hear the roar of the stamps. The hand that held

the lump of quartz was trembling, and there was a tired, nervous palpitation apparently in the pit of his

stomach. It came to him abruptly that what he wanted was a drinkwhiskey, cocktails, anything, a drink.

And even then, with this new hot yearning for the alcohol upon him, he heard, faint and far, drifting down the

He was astounded at the lapse of time. She had left her sewing on the porch and was feeding the chickens

preparatory to getting supper. The afternoon was gone. He could not conceive that he had been away that

Again came the call: "Here, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick! Here, chick, chick, chick!"

It was the way she always calledfirst five, and then three. He had long since noticed it. And from these

thoughts of her arose other thoughts that caused a great fear slowly to grow in his face. For it seemed to him

that he had almost lost her. Not once had he thought of her in those frenzied hours, and for that much, at least,

He dropped the piece of quartz, slid down the slide, and started up the trail, running heavily. At the edge of

the clearing he eased down and almost crept to a point of vantage whence he could peer out, himself unseen.

She was feeding the chickens, tossing to them handfuls of grain and laughing at their antics.

The sight of her seemed to relieve the panic fear into which he had been flung, and he turned and ran back

down the trail. Again he climbed the slide, but this time he climbed higher, carrying the pick and shovel with

him. And again he toiled frenziedly, but this time with a different purpose. He worked artfully, loosing slide

after slide of the red soil and sending it streaming down and covering up all he had uncovered, hiding from

the light of day the treasure he had discovered. He even went into the woods and scooped armfuls of last

year's fallen leaves which he scattered over the slide. But this he gave up as a vain task; and he sent more

slides of soil down upon the scene of his labor, until no sign remained of the outjutting walls of the vein.

Next he repaired the broken pipe, gathered his tools together, and started up the trail. He walked slowly,

feeling a great weariness, as of a man who had passed through a frightful crisis.

He put the tools away, took a great drink of the water that again flowed through the pipes, and sat down on

the bench by the open kitchen door. Dede was inside, preparing supper, and the sound of her footsteps gave

He breathed the balmy mountain air in great gulps, like a diver freshrisen from the sea. And, as he drank in

the air, he gazed with all his eyes at the clouds and sky and valley, as if he were drinking in that, too, along

Dede did not know he had come back, and at times he turned his head and stole glances in at herat her

efficient hands, at the bronze of her brown hair that smouldered with fire when she crossed the path of

sunshine that streamed through the window, at the promise of her figure that shot through him a pang most

strangely sweet and sweetly dear. He heard her approaching the door, and kept his head turned resolutely

toward the valley. And next, he thrilled, as he had always thrilled, when he felt the caressing gentleness of her

"Pretty bad, that slide," he answered, still gazing away and thrilling to her touch. "More serious than I

reckoned. But I've got the plan. Do you know what I'm going to do?I'm going to plant eucalyptus all over

it. They'll hold it. I'll plant them thick as grass, so that even a hungry rabbit can't squeeze between them; and

when they get their roots agoing, nothing in creation will ever move that dirt again."

"Nothing exciting. But I'd sure like to see any blamed old slide get the best of me, that's all. I'm going to seal

that slide down so that it'll stay there for a million years. And when the last trump sounds, and Sonoma

Mountain and all the other mountains pass into nothingness, that old slide will be still astanding there, held

"Say, little woman, you sure miss a lot by living here on the ranchmusic, and theatres, and such things.

So great was his anxiety that he dared not look at her, and when she laughed and shook her head he was

aware of a great relief. Also, he noted the undiminished youth that rang through that same oldtime boyish

"Say," he said, with sudden fierceness, "don't you go fooling around that slide until after I get the trees in and

"What a lover!" she said; and pride in him and in her own womanhood was in her voice.

"Look at that, Dede." He removed one encircling arm and swept it in a wide gesture over the valley and the

mountains beyond. "The Valley of the Moona good name, a good name. Do you know, when I look out

over it all, and think of you and of all it means, it kind of makes me ache in the throat, and I have things in

my heart I can't find the words to say, and I have a feeling that I can almost understand Browning and those

other highflying poetfellows. Look at Hood Mountain there, just where the sun's striking. It was down in

"And that was the night you didn't milk the cows till ten o'clock," she laughed. "And if you keep me here

Both arose from the bench, and Daylight caught up the milkpail from the nail by the door. He paused a

"It's sure grand," she echoed, laughing joyously at him and with him and herself and all the world, as she

And Daylight, like the old man he once had met, himself went down the hill through the fires of sunset with a