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this day the double dividend would be declared, he assured
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himself. The pinch of delivery would be on the shorts. They
would be making terms with him.
And then the thunderbolt struck. True to the rumor, Ward Valley
levied the assessment. Daylight threw up his arms. He verified
Burning Daylight
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95
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 head-lines. 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.
What in hell did he want to kill himself for? was Daylight's
muttered comment.
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.
"Buncoed, by gosh!" he muttered.
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
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easy. They had gold-bricked 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
sneak-thieves and swindlers, that was what they were, and they
had given him the double-cross. 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 days--ample 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 beyond him--most likely start another string of banks.
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
Burning Daylight
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96
instead of killing himself. He should have gone gunning.
Daylight unlocked his grip and took out his automatic pistol--a
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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
suffered--the long, unending weeks of trail, the bleak tundra
shore of Point Barrow, the smashing ice-jam of the Yukon, the
battles with animals and men, the lean-dragged 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
pack-strap and tump-line, 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 five-hundred-dollar 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.
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