Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 April 1912 — BURNING DAYLIGHT [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BURNING DAYLIGHT

BY JACK LONDON

Author Or The Call Or The W/ltf ‘ 'White Tang, "Mapt/nTdehTtc Illustrations By Dearborn Mtlynl

(Copyright, 1910, by the New York Herald Company.) (Copyright. 1910. by the MacMillan Company. CHAPTER VII.

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. He settled down fti St. Francis Hotel, was interviewed by the cub-reporters on the hotel-run, and received brief para- ' graphs of notice for twenty r four hours. } Several months passed in San Fran- I cisco, during which time he studied j the game and its rules, and prepared himself to take a hand. Tiring of being merely an onlooker, he ran up to Nevada, where the new gold-mining boom was fairly started— ; “just to try a flutter,” as he phrhsed it to himself. The flutter on the To- ■ nopah Stock Exchange lasted just ten days, during which time his smash- • ing, wild-bull game played ducks and drakes with the more stereotyped gamblers, and at the end of which | tim.e, 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 Hotel. It tasted good, and his hunger for the game became more acute. And once more the papers sensationalized him. BURNING DAYLIGHT was a big-letter headline again. In- \ terviewers flocked about him. 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 self-defence he was compelled to open offices. He dabbled in, little things at first—“stalling for time,” as he explained to Holdsworthy, a friend he had made at the Alta-Pacific 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 sharks—“ground-sharks,” he called them—that flocked about him. 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 not understand how any one could be taken in by them. 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, the men of the Alta-Pacific, for instance. He merely did not elect to choose them for partners in the big game in which he intended to play. What this big gamp was, even he did not know. He was waiting to find it. And in the meantime he played small hands, in- - vesting in several arid-lands reclamation projects and keeping his eves open for the big chance when it should come along.

And then he met John Dowsett, the great John Dowsett. 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 of Standard Oil, and known ally of the Guggenhammers. Nor did his looks belle his reputation and his manner. Physically, he guaranteed all that Daylight knew of him. Despite his sixty years and snowwhite hair, his hand-shake was firmly hearty, and he showed no signs ot decrepitude, walking with a quick, snappy step, making all movements definitely and decisively. 1

It was not long afterward that Daylight came on to New York. A letter from John Dowsett had been the cause —a simple little typewritten letter of several lines. But Daylight had thrilled as he read it. The bald sentences seemed gorged with mystery. “Our Mr. Howison will call up- ' on you at yous 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 man to make a Journey across the continent. They met —thanks to “our” Mr. Howison—up the Hudson, in a magnificent country home. Daylight, according to , instructions, arrived in a private motor car which had been furnished him. Dowsett was already and another man whom DayUebt recoenizeu before the introduc-

ton, 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 wvorld, and about his endowed University of , mIMW cf/vfer-

i“l Must Say, Mr. Harnish, That You Whipped Us Roundly in That Affair.” Daratona. He, likewise, struck Daylight as a man of power, though he was puzzled in that he could find no likeness to Dow sett. 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. Not more than fifty, thatched with a sparse growth of irongray hair, he locked several times the age of Dowsett. They drank —that 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. 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. Daylight —er, Mb. Harnish, that you whipped us roundly in that affair.” Leon Guggenhammer was young and fat. Not a day more than thirty, his face, save for the adumbated puff sacks under the eyes, was as smooth and lineless as a boy’s. The talk soon centered down to business. 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. And they filled his eyes with the practical vision of what he had in mind.

“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 proper buccaneer style.” “Of course, you understand, Mr. Harnish, the absolute need for keeping our alliance in the dark,” Nathaniel Letton warned, gravely. 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 v.ho may be hurt are the stock gamblers themselves. It is not an attempt Co smash the market. As you see yourself, you are to bull the market. The honest investor will be the gainer.”

“Yes, that’s the very thing,’’ Dowsett said. “The commercial need for copper is continually increasing. Ward Valley Corper, and all that it stands so one-quarter of the world’s supply, as I have shown you—is a big thing, how bjg, 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. Thus we kill both birds with one stone. 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 customary dividend, a double dividend will be de* dared.”

“There will be all sorts u 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 no concern of yours. You are 'n the

Inside. All you have to do is buy, buy, bdy, and keep cn buying to the last stroke, when the directors declare the double Valley will jump so that it won’t be feasible to buy after that.” “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." [ *’Yes, we are behind you,” Dowsett repeated. Nathaniel Letton nodded his head in affirmation. (To be Continued.)