Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1912 — BURNING DAYLIGHT [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BURNING DAYLIGHT

BY JACK LONDON

Author Of Iff Call OfA/fV/ia r W/i/T£ F/mg % yfAsmp>FA[Y7zr Illustrations By Dlar&ohn Mtim >-

(Copyright, 1910. by (Copyright. ISIO. by the MacMillan Coctpany

SYNOPSIS. ' "V-. L—Elam Harnish, known •U toroLiEh Alaska as "Burning Daylight, celebrates hia 30th birthday with 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 ia ,which over SIOO,OOO is staked. Harniah loses his money and his mine but wins the mail contract of the district. CHAPTER IT.—Burning Daylight starts on nls trip to deliver the mail with dogs and sledge. He tells his friends that the bI S Tukpn gold strike will soon be on vJJJti.h® Intends to be in It, at the start. vt Ith Indian attendants and dogs he dips over the bank and down the frozen i ukon 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.—Harnish decides where the gold will be found inr*the up-river district and buys two. tons of flour, which he declares will be worth its weight in gold before the season is over. 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 make • ’ortune ;*tter fortune'. One lucky Inver _neht enables him to defeat a great combination of capitalists in a vast mining deaL He determines to return to civilization and gives a farewell celebration to his friends that is remembered as a kind of blaze of glory. CHAPTER Vll.—The papers are full if* The King of the Klondike," and Daydlght Is feted by the monev of the country. They take him into a bisr copper deal and the Alaskan pioneer finds himself amid the bewildering complications of high finance. CHAPTER Vm.—Daylight is buncoed by 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 Vork City. CHAPTER IX.—Confronting his partJiers with a revolver in characteristic frontier style, he threatens to Mil If his money is not returned. They are cowed Into submission, return their stealings and Harnish back to San Francisco with his unimpaired fortune, CHAPTER X.—Daylight meets his fate in Dede Mason, a pretty stencsrapher with a crippled brother. Whom sh- cares for. Harnish Is much attracted towards her and interested in her family affairs. CHAPTER XT.—He becomes an element in large investments on the Pacific coast e.nd gets into the political ring. For a rest he goes to inspect one of#.is properties in the country and momentarilv is attracted back to the old life on the lonegome trail. CHARTER XH.—D"’--light gets deeper and deeper into high finance in San Francisco. He makes frequent runs Into the country thus getting close to nature but his mind is still In the speculation trend Very often, however, the longing for the simple life well nigh overcomes him. CHAPTER XTH:—Dade Mason buys a horse and Daylight meets her in her saddle trips. HfTe begins to indulge in horseback riding and manages to get into her company quite often. CHAPTER XTV.— One day Daylight asks Dede to go with Mm on one more ride, his purpose being to ask her to marry him. and they canter away, she trying to analyze her feelings. CHAPTER XV.—Ded= tells daylight •that she likes Mm but that her happiness could not 11e with a money manipulator. She suggests the vss* good he could do with his wealth If so inclined.

CHAPTER XVI. All week every one in the office knew that something new and big was afoot in Daylight’s mind. 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 gosh-dangdest gamble a man ever went into. How about planting min-

utes wholesale, and making two minutes grow where one minute grew be fore? Oh, yes, and planting a few trees, too —say 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 war to San Leandro. I own a

lot of them already, for that matter. But mum is the word. 11l be buying a long time tp 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 down; its Elor>es through Piedmont and halfway along those rolling hills into Oakland. And it’s nothing to all the things I’m going to buy.” He paused triumphantly. "The ferry system between Oakland and San Francisco is the worst onehorse concern in the Ffuted States. You cross on ft eTefiry day. six days in the week. That's say, twenty-five days a month, or three hundred a year. How long does ft 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 minues a day. times tbvee hundred, equal to twelve thousand minutes a year. Just for you, just for one person. Let’s sec: 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 is? Come on Let's ride up that'hill, and when I get you out on top where you can see something. I’ll talk sense.” A small footpath dropped down to the dry bed of the canyon, 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. Showers, of twigs and leaves fell upon them, and predicament followed predicament.' .until' they emerged on the hilltop the worse for wear out happy and excited; Here no trees obstructed the view. ' The particular hill on which they. were, out-jutted from the regular line of the- 'tree, so that the sweep of iheir .vision extended over three-quarters of the circle. Below, on the. .fiat lard bordering the bay, lay Oakland, and across the hay was San Francisco: Between the two cities they could’ see the while Ferry-boats on the w£T er . Around to their right was Berkeley, and to their left the •scattered villages between Oakland ana San Leandro. Dineedy in the foreground was Piedmont, with its desultory dwellings and 'patches of farming land, and from Piedmont the land rolled, down in successive waves upon Oakland.

“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 jn 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 ouy 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 one-half by building a big pier out there almost to Goat Island and establishing a ferry system with modern up-to-date 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'E cheap now. Why? Because It’s in the country, no electric roads, no quick communication, nobody guessing that the electric roads are coming. TO 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 and transportation facilities. “You see. I give the value tq the land hy 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 all sorts of millions In it. I’m going to get my hands on some of that water front and the tide-lands. 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 &tea. That means me buying In the factory sites before anybedy 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 TO be there to sell them the land. Then there’s the water. 11l 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 stick-in-the-muds. TO gobble them up and deliver the right article to the city. There’s money there, too—money everywhere. Everything works in with everything else. Each improvement makes the value of everything else jump 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 inside two years. And what’s more, it wont be one of these wildcat land booms. It will be legitimate. Twenty years from 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 up-to-date 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, yea, I’m going to plant eucalyptus, millions of them, on these hills.” ‘ 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. 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. Daylight 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 tide-lands for his dock system. The' tide-lands had been in litigation for years, and he took the bull by the horns —buying out the private owners and at the same time pleasing 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 modem office building In the town —the only building that wouldn't be ’tom 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 stlekiL) There’s the Alameda & Contra Costa Land Syndicate, the Consolidated Street Railways, the Yerha 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 a-going till I got them all. And there’s the ship-building company I ain’t got a name for yet. Seeing as I had to have ferry-boats, I decided to build them myself. They’ll be done by the time the pier is ready for them.” 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 salai-y, 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 pile-drivers hammered the big piles down into the mud of Sah Francisco Bay. The pier was to be three miles long, and the Berkeley hills were denuded of whole groves of mature eucalyptus for the piling. At the same time that, his electric roads were building out through the hills, the hay-fields were being surveyed and broken up into city squares, with here and there, according to best modern method's, winding boulevards and strips of park. Broad streets, well graded, were made, with sewers and water-pipes 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 hundreds of residences were going up The profit on this land was enormous. In a day, his on slaught of wealth had turned open farming country into one of the best residential districts of the city. Bht 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. But no matter what pressure was on Daylight, his Sundays he reserved for his riding in the hills. It ; wa ? hot the rainy winter weather.

i • however, that brought these rides , with Dede to an end. One Saturday j afternoon in the office she told him ; n °l expect to meet her next day, ; and, when he pressed for an explanation.—

! “I’ve sold Mab.” j Daylight was speechless for the moj ment. Her act meant one of so many serious things that he couldn’t classijfy it smacked almost of treachery. , She might have met with financial disI aster. It might be her way of letting him know she had seen enough of ! him. Or . . . 1 “What’s the matter?” he managed to ask. "I couldn’t afford tojceep her with hay forty-five dollars a ton,” Dade answered. “My brother’s expenses have been higher, as well, and I was driven to the conclusion that since I could not afford both, I’d better let ■ the mare go and the brother.” ’Who bought her?’’ he asked. 1 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 w as what you had in mind.” “I w ish 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 jaa much as it does to most men to send a bouquet of flowers or a box of candy to a young lady. There’s nobody I feel chummy w ; ith except you, and you know how little we’ve chummed—once a week, if it didn’t rain, on Sunday. I’ve grown kind of to depend on you. If you'd just let me buy her back—” “No. no; 1 tell you no.” Dede arose Impatiently, but her eyes were moist with the momery 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 "fast of her, and I want to forget her.” Daylight made no answer, and the door closed behind her. Half an hour later he was conferring with Jones, an erstwhile eleator 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 Daylight was now 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, betrayed no surprise now when the task was given him to locate the purchaser of a certain sorrel mare. “How high shall I pay for her?” he asked. .. , : \/ “Any price. You’ve got to get her, that’s the point. Drive a sharp bargain so as not to excite suspicion, but get 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 her. Savvee?” But the week had not passed, when Daylight noted the flash In Dede’s eyes that boded trouble. “Something’s gone wrong—what is it?" he said boldly. “Mab,” she said. "The man who bought her has sold her already. If I thought you had anything to do with It—’* • “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. And you needn’t get touchy abqut it, for it’s not really your business at all. 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 hay he need B—that crack German specialist who rips a man’s bones and muscles into pulp and then moulds them all over again. Well, I want to send him to Germany and give that crack a flutter, that’s all.’’ "If it were only possible!” she said, half breathlessly, and wholly without anger "Only it isn’t, and you know It Isn’t. I can’t accept money from you—” . “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 n» to reach put and catch you by tbe arm? Sure it would. You’re standing in your brother’s way. No matter what notions you’ve got 'ln 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, and that's all, and charge him interest." She visibly hesitated. “And just remember one thing Miss Mason: it’s his leg, not yours.’* 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 around. I’ll go over tomorrow .afteruof tTo be Continued. )

“Look at It,” Said Daylight, Extending His Arm in a Sweeping Gesture.

“If You’d Just Let Me Buy Her Back.”