Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 May 1912 — BURNING DAYLIGHT [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BURNING DAYLIGHT

BY JACK LONDON

flume Of'TheCall. 'Of The W/lcT 'White Tahg. "MA#nj/p)EfT£rcT ■ Ilujstpations By DtAßßogNMavai,

(Copyright, 1910, by the New York Herald (■Copyright. 1910, by the MacMillan Company,

SYNOPSIS. CHAPTER I.— Elam Harnish, known all through Alaska as “Burning Daylight,” celebrates his 30th birthday with a friendly ,crowd of miners at the Circle City Tivoli. He is a general favorite, a hero and a pioneer in the new gold fields. The dance leads to heavy gambling in which over SIOO,OOO is staked. Harnish loses his money and his mine but wins the mail contract of the district. CHAPTER ll.—Burning Daylight starts on his trip to deliver the mail with dogs and sledge. He tells his friends .that the big Yukon gold strike will soon be on and he intends to be in it at the start. ith Indian attendants and dogs he dips over the batik and dow® the frozen Yukon and in the gray light is gone. CHAPTER 111. —Harnish makes a sensationally rapid run across country with' the mail, appears at the Tivoli and there is another characteristic celebration. He has made a record against cold and exhaustion and is now ready to join his friends in a dash to the new gold fields. CHAPTER IV.—Hamish decides where the gold will be found in the up-river district and buys two tons of flour, which, he declares will be worth its weight in gold before the season is d’ver, CHAPTER V.—When Daylight arrives with his heavy outfit of flour he finds the big flat desolate. A comrade discovers gold and Harnish reaps a rich harvest. He goes to Dawson, begins investing in corner lots and staking other .miners and becomes the most prominent figure in the Klondike. CHAPTER Vl.—Harnish makes fortune after fortune. One lucky investment enables him to defeat a great combination of capitalists in a vast mining deal. He determines to return to civilization grid .gives a farewell celebration to his friends that is remembered as a kind of blaze of glory. Vll.—The papers are full The King of the Klondike." and Daylight is feted by the money magnates of the country. They take him into a bi£ copper deal and the Alaskan pioneer finds himself amid the bewildering complications of high finance. CHAPTER Vlll.—Daylight is buncoed ipy the moneyed men and finds that he has been led to invest his eleven millions in a manipulated scheme. He goes to meet his disloyal business' partners at their offices in New York City. CHAPTER. IX.—Confronting his partners with a revolver In characteristic frontier style, he threatens to kill them if his money is not returned. They are cowed into submission, return their stealings and Harnish goes back to San Francisco with his unimpaired fortune. CHAPTER X.—Daylight meets his fate In Dede Mason, a pretty stenographer with a crippled brother, whom she cares for. Harnish is much attracted towards her and Interested In her family affairs. CHAPTER Xl.—He becomes an element 1n large investments on the Pacific coast and gets into the political ring. For a rest he goes to inspect one' oftilis properties in the country and momentarily is attracted back to the old life on the lonesome trail.

CHAPTER XII. 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. As on the previous day, just for the joy of it, he followed cattle-trails at haphazard and worked his way up toward the summits. Coming out upon a wagon road that led upward, he followed it for several miles, emerging in a small, mountain-encircled valley, where half a dozen poor ranchers farmed the wine-grapes on the steep slopes. Beyond, the road pitched upward. Dense chaparral covered the exposed hillsides, but in the creases of the canyons huge spruce trees grew, and wild oats and flowers. Late in the afternoon he broke through, and followed a well-defined trail down a dry canyon. The dry canyon gave place to one with a slender ribbon of running water. The trail ran into a wood-road, and the wood-road emerged across a small flat upon a slightly traveled country road. There were no farms in this immediate sectipn r and no'houses. The soil was meager, the bed-rock either close to the surface or constituting the surface itself. Manzanita and scrub-oak, 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, reminded Daylight of a rabbit.

He was a little man, in patched overalls; bareheaded, with a cotton shirt open at the throat and down the chest. The sun was ruddy-brown in his face, and by it his sandy hair was bleached on the ends to peroxide blonde. He sighed to Daylight to halt, and held up a letter. “If you’re going to town, I’d be obliged if you mail this,” he said. “I sure will.” Daylight put it into his coat pocket. “Do you live hereabouts, stranger?” ■ But the little man did not answer. He was gazing at Daylight in a surprised and steadfast fashion. “I know you,” the little main announced. “You’re Elam Harnish —•' Burning Daylight, the papers call you. Am I right?” Daylight nodded. “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 yeur photo in the papers many a time, and I’ve a good memory for faces. I recognized you at once. My name’s Ferguson.” “Do you live hereabouts?” Daylight repeated his query. “Oh, yes. I’ve got a little shack back here in the bush a hundred yards and*»fc pretty spring, and a few fruit trees and berry bushes. Come in anfl

take a look. And that spring is a dandy. You never tasted 7 water like it. Come in and try it.” . Walking and leading his horse; Daylight followed the quick-stepping, 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 walls of a canyon 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 veranda of which, with chairs and hammocks, advertised an out-of-doors bedchamber. Daylight’s keen eyes took in everything. 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 everywhere, and along some of them the water -was running. Ferguson looked eagerly into his visitor’s face for signs of approbation. “What do you think of it, eh?” “Hand-reared and manicured, every blessed tree,” Daylight laughed, but the joy and satisfaction that shone in his eyes contented the little man.

"Why, d’ye know, I know every one of those trees as if they were sons of mine. I planted them, nursed them, fed them, and brought them up. Come on and peep at the spring.” “It’s sure a hummer,” was Daylight’s verdict, after due inspection and sampling, as they turned back for the house. 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 wall to celling, 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 pine-board floor. Daylight found himself charmed and made curious by the little man. Why was he hiding away here in the chaparral, he and his books? So it was, when between them they had washed and wiped the dishes and put them away, and had settled down to a comfortable smoke, that Daylight put his question.

“Look here, Ferguson. Every 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?” f Ferguson frankly showed his ’pleasure at the questions. “First of all,” he began, “the doctors wound up by losing all hope for me. Gave me a few months r at best, and that, after a course in sanitariums and a trip to Europe and another to Hawaii. They tried electricity and forced feeding and fasting. 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 twofold; first I was a born weakling; and next, I was living unnaturally—too much work, and responsibility and strain. I was managing editor of the Times-Tribune in San Francisco, and I wasn’t strong enough for the strain. Of course my body went back on me, and my mind, too, for that matatr. It had to be bolstered up with whisky, 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. So I quit, quit everything, absolutely, and came to live in the Valley of the Moon—that’s the Indian name, you know, for Sonoma Valley. I, lived In the lean-to the first

year; then I bunt the cabin and senjp for ifay books. I never knew what hap-, piness was before, nor health. Look at me now and dare to tell me that I look forty-seven.” "I wouldn't give a day over forty,” Daylight confessed. ”Yet the day I came here I looked j nearer sixty,, and that J was fifteen years ago.” They talked along, and Daylight; looked at the world from new angle*. Here was a man, neither bitter nor cynical, who laughed at the city-dwell-ers and called them lunatics; a man who did not care for money, and in whom the lust for power had long since died. 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 I ranch, and as soon as he got back to j the office he would open up negotla- j tions with Hillard. The time passed, and he played on at the game. San Francisco’s attitude toward Daylight had undergone 1 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 let him alone. He had already taught them the excellence of letting a sleeping dog lie. Dede Mason was still in the office. He had made no more overtures, discussed no more, books. 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 definite 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 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. .The more he saw of her, and the more he thought he knew ot 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 glad he had her in his office, and hoped she’d stay, and that was about all. 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 kis 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 fibers were weakening. Never a man to hide anything, some of his escapades became public, such as speeding, and of joy-rides in his big red motor car down to San Jose with companions distinctly sporty —incidents that were narrated as good fun and comically in the newspapers. (To be Continued.)

“What Do You Think of It, Eh?”