Burning Daylight

by Jack London

  CHAPTER I

  In no blaze of glory did Burning Daylight descend upon San Francisco.Not only had he been forgotten, but the Klondike along with him. Theworld was interested in other things, and the Alaskan adventure, likethe Spanish War, was an old story. Many things had happened sincethen. Exciting things were happening every day, and thesensation-space of newspapers was limited. The effect of being ignored,however, was an exhilaration. Big man as he had been in the Arcticgame, it merely showed how much bigger was this new game, when a manworth eleven millions, and with a history such as his, passed unnoticed.

  He settled down in St. Francis Hotel, was interviewed by thecub-reporters on the hotel-run, and received brief paragraphs of noticefor twenty-four hours. He grinned to himself, and began to look aroundand get acquainted with the new order of beings and things. He wasvery awkward and very self-possessed. In addition to the stiffeningafforded his backbone by the conscious ownership of eleven millions, hepossessed an enormous certitude.

  Nothing abashed him, nor was he appalled by the display and culture andpower around him. It was another kind of wilderness, that was all; andit was for him to learn the ways of it, the signs and trails andwater-holes where good hunting lay, and the bad stretches of field andflood to be avoided. As usual, he fought shy of the women. He wasstill too badly scared to come to close quarters with the dazzling andresplendent creatures his own millions made accessible.

  They looked and longed, but he so concealed his timidity that he hadall the seeming of moving boldly among them. Nor was it his wealthalone that attracted them. He was too much a man, and too much anunusual type of man. Young yet, barely thirty-six, eminently handsome,magnificently strong, almost bursting with a splendid virility, hisfree trail-stride, never learned on pavements, and his black eyes,hinting of great spaces and unwearied with the close perspective of thecity dwellers, drew many a curious and wayward feminine glance. Hesaw, grinned knowingly to himself, and faced them as so many dangers,with a cool demeanor that was a far greater personal achievement thanhad they been famine, frost, or flood.

  He had come down to the States to play the man's game, not the woman'sgame; and the men he had not yet learned. They struck him assoft--soft physically; yet he divined them hard in their dealings, buthard under an exterior of supple softness. It struck him that therewas something cat-like about them. He met them in the clubs, andwondered how real was the good-fellowship they displayed and howquickly they would unsheathe their claws and gouge and rend. "That'sthe proposition," he repeated to himself; "what will they-all do whenthe play is close and down to brass tacks?" He felt unwarrantablysuspicious of them. "They're sure slick," was his secret judgment; andfrom bits of gossip dropped now and again he felt his judgment wellbuttressed. On the other hand, they radiated an atmosphere ofmanliness and the fair play that goes with manliness. They might gougeand rend in a fight--which was no more than natural; but he felt,somehow, that they would gouge and rend according to rule. This was theimpression he got of them--a generalization tempered by knowledge thatthere was bound to be a certain percentage of scoundrels among them.

  Several months passed in San Francisco during which time he studied thegame and its rules, and prepared himself to take a hand. He even tookprivate instruction in English, and succeeded in eliminating his worstfaults, though in moments of excitement he was prone to lapse into"you-all," "knowed," "sure," and similar solecisms. He learned to eatand dress and generally comport himself after the manner of civilizedman; but through it all he remained himself, not unduly reverential norconsiderative, and never hesitating to stride rough-shod over anysoft-faced convention if it got in his way and the provocation weregreat enough. Also, and unlike the average run of weaker men comingfrom back countries and far places, he failed to reverence theparticular tin gods worshipped variously by the civilized tribes ofmen. He had seen totems before, and knew them for what they were.

  Tiring of being merely an onlooker, he ran up to Nevada, where the newgold-mining boom was fairly started--"just to try a flutter," as hephrased it to himself. The flutter on the Tonopah Stock Exchangelasted just ten days, during which time his smashing, wild-bull gameplayed ducks and drakes with the more stereotyped gamblers, and at theend of which time, having gambled Floridel into his fist, he let go fora net profit of half a million. Whereupon, smacking his lips, hedeparted for San Francisco and the St. Francis Hotel. It tasted good,and his hunger for the game became more acute.

  And once more the papers sensationalized him. BURNING DAYLIGHT was abig-letter headline again. Interviewers flocked about him.

  Old files of magazines and newspapers were searched through, and theromantic and historic Elam Harnish, Adventurer of the Frost, King ofthe Klondike, and father of the Sourdoughs, strode upon the breakfasttable 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 ofspeculation surged upon the shores of his eleven millions. Inself-defence he was compelled to open offices. He had made them sit upand take notice, and now, willy-nilly, they were dealing him hands andclamoring for him to play. Well, play he would; he'd show 'em; evendespite the elated prophesies made of how swiftly he would betrimmed--prophesies coupled with descriptions of the bucolic game hewould play and of his wild and woolly appearance.

  He dabbled in little things at first--"stalling for time," as heexplained it to Holdsworthy, a friend he had made at the Alta-PacificClub. Daylight himself was a member of the club, and Holdsworthy hadproposed him. And it was well that Daylight played closely at first,for he was astounded by the multitudes of sharks--"ground-sharks," hecalled them--that flocked about him.

  He saw through their schemes readily enough, and even marveled thatsuch numbers of them could find sufficient prey to keep them going.Their rascality and general dubiousness was so transparent that hecould not understand how any one could be taken in by them.

  And then he found that there were sharks and sharks. Holdsworthytreated him more like a brother than a mere fellow-clubman, watchingover him, advising him, and introducing him to the magnates of thelocal financial world. Holdsworthy's family lived in a delightfulbungalow near Menlo Park, and here Daylight spent a number of weekends,seeing a fineness and kindness of home life of which he had neverdreamed. Holdsworthy was an enthusiast over flowers, and a halflunatic over raising prize poultry; and these engrossing madnesses werea source of perpetual joy to Daylight, who looked on in tolerant goodhumor. Such amiable weaknesses tokened the healthfulness of the man,and drew Daylight closer to him. A prosperous, successful business manwithout great ambition, was Daylight's estimate of him--a man tooeasily satisfied with the small stakes of the game ever to launch outin big play.

  On one such week-end visit, Holdsworthy let him in on a good thing, agood little thing, a brickyard at Glen Ellen. Daylight listenedclosely to the other's description of the situation. It was a mostreasonable venture, and Daylight's one objection was that it was sosmall a matter and so far out of his line; and he went into it only asa matter of friendship, Holdsworthy explaining that he was himselfalready in a bit, and that while it was a good thing, he would becompelled to make sacrifices in other directions in order to developit. Daylight advanced the capital, fifty thousand dollars, and, as helaughingly explained afterward, "I was stung, all right, but it wasn'tHoldsworthy that did it half as much as those blamed chickens andfruit-trees of his."

  It was a good lesson, however, for he learned that there were fewfaiths in the business world, and that even the simple, homely faith ofbreaking bread and eating salt counted for little in the face of aworthless brickyard and fifty thousand dollars in cash.

  But the sharks and sharks of various orders and degrees, he concluded,were on the surface. Deep down, he divined, were the integrities andthe stabilities. These big captains of industry and masters offinance, he decided, were the men to work with. By the very nature oftheir huge deals
and enterprises they had to play fair. No room therefor little sharpers' tricks and bunco games. It was to be expectedthat little men should salt gold-mines with a shotgun and work offworthless brick-yards on their friends, but in high finance suchmethods were not worth while. There the men were engaged in developingthe country, organizing its railroads, opening up its mines, makingaccessible its vast natural resources. Their play was bound to be bigand stable. "They sure can't afford tin-horn tactics," was his summingup.

  So it was that he resolved to leave the little men, the Holdsworthys,alone; and, while he met them in good-fellowship, he chummed with none,and formed no deep friendships. He did not dislike the little men, themen of the Alta-Pacific, for instance. He merely did not elect tochoose 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 findit. And in the meantime he played small hands, investing in severalarid-lands reclamation projects and keeping his eyes open for the bigchance when it should come along.

  And then he met John Dowsett, the great John Dowsett. The whole thingwas fortuitous. This cannot be doubted, as Daylight himself knew, itwas by the merest chance, when in Los Angeles, that he heard the tunawere running strong at Santa Catalina, and went over to the islandinstead of returning directly to San Francisco as he had planned.There he met John Dowsett, resting off for several days in the middleof a flying western trip. Dowsett had of course heard of thespectacular Klondike King and his rumored thirty millions, and hecertainly found himself interested by the man in the acquaintance thatwas formed. Somewhere along in this acquaintanceship the idea must havepopped into his brain. But he did not broach it, preferring to matureit carefully. So he talked in large general ways, and did his best tobe agreeable and win Daylight's friendship.

  It was the first big magnate Daylight had met face to face, and he waspleased and charmed. There was such a kindly humanness about the man,such a genial democraticness, that Daylight found it hard to realizethat this was THE John Dowsett, president of a string of banks,insurance manipulator, reputed ally of the lieutenants of Standard Oil,and known ally of the Guggenhammers.

  Nor did his looks belie his reputation and his manner.

  Physically, he guaranteed all that Daylight knew of him. Despite hissixty years and snow-white hair, his hand-shake was firmly hearty, andhe showed no signs of decrepitude, walking with a quick, snappy step,making all movements definitely and decisively. His skin was a healthypink, and his thin, clean lips knew the way to writhe heartily over ajoke. He had honest blue eyes of palest blue; they looked out at onekeenly and frankly from under shaggy gray brows. His mind showeditself disciplined and orderly, and its workings struck Daylight ashaving all the certitude of a steel trap. He was a man who KNEW andwho never decorated his knowledge with foolish frills of sentiment oremotion. That he was accustomed to command was patent, and every wordand gesture tingled with power. Combined with this was his sympathyand tact, and Daylight could note easily enough all the earmarks thatdistinguished him from a little man of the Holdsworthy caliber.Daylight knew also his history, the prime old American stock from whichhe had descended, his own war record, the John Dowsett before him whohad been one of the banking buttresses of the Cause of the Union, theCommodore Dowsett of the War of 1812 the General Dowsett ofRevolutionary fame, and that first far Dowsett, owner of lands andslaves in early New England.

  "He's sure the real thing," he told one of his fellow-clubmenafterwards, in the smoking-room of the Alta-Pacific. "I tell you,Gallon, he was a genuine surprise to me. I knew the big ones had to belike that, but I had to see him to really know it. He's one of thefellows 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 nolimit to any game he plays, and you can stack on it that he plays rightup to the handle. I bet he can lose or win half a dozen millionwithout batting an eye."

  Gallon puffed at his cigar, and at the conclusion of the panegyricregarded the other curiously; but Daylight, ordering cocktails, failedto note this curious stare.

  "Going in with him on some deal, I suppose," Gallon remarked.

  "Nope, not the slightest idea. Here's kindness. I was just explainingthat I'd come to understand how these big fellows do big things. Why,d'ye know, he gave me such a feeling that he knew everything, that Iwas plumb ashamed of myself."

  "I guess I could give him cards and spades when it comes to driving adog-team, though," Daylight observed, after a meditative pause. "And Ireally believe I could put him on to a few wrinkles in poker and placermining, and maybe in paddling a birch canoe. And maybe I stand abetter chance to learn the game he's been playing all his life than hewould stand of learning the game I played up North."