Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1912 — BURNING DAYLIGHT [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BURNING DAYLIGHT

BY JACK LONDON

AUTHOJ? Of Illustrations By

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

SYNOPSIS. B CHAPTER I.—Elam Harnish, known I* through Alaska as ‘‘Burning DayRht, ' cel ebrates his 30th birthday with j* 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 mall contract of the district. CHAPTER n.—Burning Daylight starts on his trip to deliver the mail with, dogs ®} e< ige. He tells his friends that the big Yukon gold strike will soon be on intends to be in it at the start. At Ith Indian attendants and dogs he dips over the bank and down the frozen Yukon and in the gray light is gone. CHAPTER TH.—Harnish makes a sensationally rapid run across country with ithe mail, appears at the TiVoll and there s another characteristic celebration. 'He ins made a record against cold and i 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 in the up-river district and buys tw.P tons of flour, which declares will be worth its weight in void before the season is over. . 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 lota and staking other miners and becomes the most prominent •figure in the Klondike, CHAPTER Vl.—Harnish makes fortune ! a “ er fortune. One lucky investment enables him to defeat a great combination |bf capitalists In a vast mining deal. He determines to return to civilization and jpVes a farewell celebration to his friends shat is remembered as a kind of blaze of jpory.

YU.—The papers are full jRf The of the Klondike,” and DayKight is feted by the money magnates of the country. They take him Into a big (copper deal and the Alaskan pioneer pflnds himself amid the bewildering complications of hlgti finance. E CHAPTER V Ill.—Daylight Is buncoed the moneyed men and finds that he been led to invest his eleven millions a manipulated scheme. He goes to st his disloyal business partners at Ir offices In New York City. CHAPTER IX.—Confronting his partIE? rs . a revolver In characteristic (frontier style, he threatens to kill them Bf his money Is not returned. They are cowed into submission, return their steallings and Harnish goes back to San Fran-,-cisco with his unimpaired fortune. u CHAPTER X.—Daylight meets his fate * n , .J-tede Mason, a pretty stenographer fwith a crippled brother, whom she cares for. Harnish Is much attracted towards faer and Interested In her family affairs. CHAPTER Xl.—He becomes an element In large investments on the Pacific boast pnd gets into the political ring. For a rest he goes to inspect one of Wils propergles in the country and momentarily is attracted back to the old life on the lone■otne trail. CHAPTER Xll.— Daylight gets deeper and deeper into high finance in San FranMsco. He makes frequent runs into the country thus getting close to nature, but afls mind Is still in the speculation trend. Very often, however, the longing for the wimple life well nigh overcomes him CHAPTER XlTT.—Dede Mason buys a Band Daylight meets her In her e trips. He begins to indulge in back riding and manages to get into her company quite often. CHAPTER XlV.—One day Daylight asks Dede to go with him on one more ride, his purpose being to ask her to marry him. and they canter away, she trying Ito analyze her fteelings. (CHAPTER XV.—Dede tells daylight that she likes him but that her happtaees gould not ne with a money manipulator. IBhe suggests the vast good he could Ao ■with his wealth if so inclined. CHAPTER XVTI—For the sake of his rove. Daylight undertakes the scheme of building up agreat Industrial community among the him. He wins her regard by Interesting himself In her crippled brother. XVII.—Dede finally tells iDaylight she does not dare marry a man (who is so engrossed with the business [game. He is Insistent and yet hopes to win her. B CHARTER XVTH.—Daylight falls back his old drinking ways and then es up from the same, realizing that 8 not the sturdy pioneer of the rude kan days. CHAPTER XlX.—There Is a flurry In le money market, but Daylight tells ede that he is going to wipe the slate ielean, go to manual work on a ranch land prove to her that he has reformed.

CHAPTER XX. Three days later, Daylight rode to Berkeley in his red car. It was for the last time, for on the morrow the big machine passed into another’s possession. It had been a strenuous three days, for his smash had been the biggest the panic had precipitated in California. The papers had been filled with it, and a great cry of indignation had gone up from the very men who later found that Daylight had fully protected their interests. It was these facts, coming slowly to light, that gave rise to the widely repeated charge that Daylight had gone insane. It was the unanimous conviction among business men that no sane man could possibly behave in such fashion. On the other hand, neither his prolonged steady drinking nor his affair' with Dede became public, so the only conclusion attainable was that the wild financier from Alaska had gone lunatic. And Daylight had grinned and confirmed the suspicion by refusing to see the reporter. He halted the automobile before Dede’s door, and met her with his same rushing tactics, enclosing her in his arms before a word could be uttered. • “I’ve done it,” he announced. “You’ve seen the newspapers, of course. I’m plumb cleaned out, and I’ve just called around to find out what day you feel like starting for Glen Ellen. It’ll have to be' soon, f for it’s real expensive living in Oakland these days. My board at the hotel is

only paid to the end of the week, and I can’t afford to stay on after that. And beginning with tomorrow I’ve got to use the street cars, and they sure eat up the nickels.” He paused, and waited, and looked at her. Indecision and trouble showed on her face. Then the smile he knew so well began to grow on her lips and in her eyes, until she threw back her head and laughed in the old forthright boyish way. ■'When are those men coming to pack for me?” she asked. And again she laughed and simulated a vain attempt to escape his bear-like arms. ’ Dear; Elam,” she whispered; ’’dear Elam.” And of herself, for the first time, she kissed him. 1 “Now. I’ve got an idea,” Daylight said. “We’re running away from cities. and you have no kith nor kin. so it don’t seem exactly right that Me should start off by getting married in a city. So here’s the idea: I’ll run up to the ranch and get things in shape around the house and give the caretaker his walking-papers. You follow me in a couple of days, coming 6>n the morning train. I’ll have the preacher fixed and w aiting. And here’s another idea. You bring ypur riding togs in a suit case. And as soon as the ceremony’s over, you can go to the hotel and change. Then out you come, and you find me waiting with a couple of horses, and we’ll ride over the landscape so as you can see the prettiest parts of the ranch the first thing. And she’s sure pretty, that ranch. And now that it’s settled. I’ll be waiting for you at the morning train day after tomorrow.” Dede blushed as she spoke. “You are such a hurricane.” “Well, ma’am,” he drawled, “I sure bate to burn daylight. And you and I have burned a heap of daylight. We’ve been scandalously extravagant. We might have been married years ago.” Two days later. Daylight stood waiting outside the little Glen Ellen hotel. The ceremony was over, and he had left Dede to go inside and change into her riding-habit while he brought the horses. He held them now, Bob and Mab, and in the shadow of the watering-trough Wolf lay and looked on. Already two days of ardent California sun and torched with new fires the ancient bronze in Daylight’s face. But warmer still was the glow that came into his cheeks and burned in his eyes as he saw Dede coming out the door, riding-whip in hand, clad in the familiar corduroy skirt and leggings of the old Piedmont days. There was warmth and glow in her own face as she answered his gaze and glanced on past him to the horses. Then she saw Mab. But her gaze leaped back to the man. “Oh, Elam!” she breathed. • •• • • • Many persons, themselves city-bred, and city reared, have fled to the soil and succeeded in winning great happiness. In such cases they have succeeded only by going through a process of savage disillusionment But with Dede and Daylight it was different They had both been born on the soil, and they knew its naked simplicities and rawer ways. They were like two persons, after far wandering, who had merely come home again. There was less of the unexpected in their dealings with nature, while theirs was all the delight of reminiscence. What might appear sordid and squalid to the fastidiously reared, was to them eminently wholesome and natural. The commerce of nature was to them no unknown and untried trade. They made fewer mistakes. They already knew, and it was a joy to remember what they had forgotten. And another thing they learned was that it was easier for one who has gorged at the flesh-pots to content himself with the meagreness of a crust, than for one who has known only the crust. Not that their life was meagre. It was that they found keener delights and deeper satisfactions in little things. Daylight, who had played the game in its biggest and most fantastic aspects, found that here, on the slopes of Sonoma Mountain, it was still the same old game. Man had still work to perform, forces to combat, obstacles to overcome. Wheri he experimented in a small way at raising a few pigeons for market, he found no less zest in calculating in squabs than formerly when he had calculated in millions. Achievement was no less achievement, while the process of it seemed more rational and received the sanction of his reason. The domestic cat that had gone wild and that preyed on his pigeons, he found, by the comparative standard, to be of no less paramount menace than a Charles Klinkner in the field of finance, trying to raid him for several millions. The hawks and weasels and 'coons were so many Dowsetts, Lettons, and Guggenhammers that struck at him secretly. The sea of wild vegetation that tossed its surf against the boundaries of all his

c!e_ rings fend that sometimes crept, in and flooded in a single week was no mean enemy to contend with and subdue. His fat-soiled vegetable-garden in the nock of hills that failed of its best was of engrossing importance. and when he had solved it by putting in draintile, the joy of the achievement was ever with him. He never worked in it and found the soil unpacked and tractable without experiencing the thrill of accomplishment.

There was the matter of the plumbing. He was enabled to purchase the materials through a lucky sale of a number of his (hair bridles. The work he did himself;, though more than once he was forced to call in Dede to hold tight with a pipe-wrench. And in the end. when the bath-tub and the stationary tubs were installed and in working order, he could scarcely tear himself away from the contemplation of what his hands had wrought. The first evening, missing him. Dede sought and found him. lamp in hand, staring with silent glee at the tubs. He nibbed his hand over their smooth wooden lips and laughed aloud, and was as shame-faced as any boy when she caught him thus secretly exulting in his own prowess. It was this adventure in wood-work-ing and plumbing that brought about the building of the little workshop, where he slowly gathered a collection of loved tools. And he. who in the old days, out of his millions, could purchase immediately whatever he might desire, learned the new joy of the possession that follows upon rigid economy and desire long delayed. He waited three months before daring the extravagance of a Yankee screw-driv-er, and his glee in the marvelous little mechanism was so keen that Dede conceived forthright a great idea. For six months she saved her egg-money, which was hers by right of allotment, and on his birthday presented him with a turning-lathe of wonderful simplicity and multifarious efficiencies. And their mutual delight in the lathe, which was his, was only equalled by their delight in Mab’s first foal, which was Dede’s special private property. Daylight had made no assertion of total abstinence, though he had not taken a drink for months after the

day he resolved to let his business go to smash. Soon he proved himself strong enough to dare to take a drink without taking a second. On the other hand, with his coming to live in the country, had passed all desire and need for drink. He felt no yearning for it, and even forgot that it existed. Yet he refused to be afraid of it, and in town, on occasion, when invited by the storekeeper, would reply: “All right, son. If my taking a drink will make you happy, here goes. Whisky for mine.” But such a drink begat no desire for a second. It made no impression. He was too profoundly strong to be effected by a thimbleful. As he had prophesied to Dede. Burning Daylight, the city financier, had died a quick death on the ranch, and his younger brother, the Daylight from Alaska, had taken his place. The threatened inundation of fat had subsided, and all his old-time Indian leanness and litheness of muscle had returned. So, likewise, did the old slight hollows in his cheeks come back. For him they indicated the pink of physical condition. He became the acknowledged strong man of Sonoma Valley, the heaviest lifter tfnd hardest winded among a husky race of farmer folk.

At first, when in need of ready cash, he had followed Ferguson’s example of working at day’s labor; but he was not long in gravitating to a form of work that was more stimulating and more satisfying, and that allowed him even more time for Dede and the ranch and the perpetual riding through the hills. Having been challenged by the blacksmith, in a spirit of banter, to attempt the breaking of a certain incorrigible colt, he succeeded so signally as to earn quite a reputation as a horse-breaker. And soon he was able to earn whatever money he desired at this, to him, agreeable work. His life was eminently wholesome and natural. Early to bed, he slept , like an infant and was up with the dawn. Always with something to do, and with a thousand little things that enticed but did not clamor, he was himself never overdone. Nevertheless, there were times when both he and Dede was not above confessing tiredness at bedtime after seventy or eighty miles in the saddle. Sometimes, when he had accumulated a little money, and when the season favored, they would mount their horses, with sad-dle-bags behind, and ride away over the wall of the valley and down into the other valleys.

One day, stopping to mall a letter at the Glen Ellen postofflee, they were hailed by the blacksmith. ; - - “Say, Daylight,” be said, “ayoung fellow named Slosson sends sou his regards. He came through In an auto on the way to Santa Rosa. He wanted to know if you didn’t live hereabouts, but the crowd with him was In a hurry. So he sent you his regards and said to tell you he’d taken yous advice and was still going on breaking his own record.” Daylight had long since told Dede of the incident. “Slosson?” he meditated, “Slosson? That must be the. hammerthrower. He put my hand down twice, the

young scamp.” He turned suddenly to Dede. “Say, it’s only twelve miles to Santa Rosa, and the horses are fresh.” She divined what was In his mind, of which his twinkling eyes and sheepish, boyish grin gave sufficient advertisement, and she smiled and nodded acquiescense. “We’ll cut across by Bennett Valley,’’ he said. ' “It’s nearer that way.” There was little difficulty, once In Santa Rosa, of finding Slosson. He and his party had registered at the Oberlin Hotel, and -Daylight encountered the young hammer-thrower himself in the office. “Look here, son,” Daylighi announced, as soon as he had Introduced Dede, “I’ve Come to go you another flutter at that hand game. Here’s a likely place.”

Slosson and accepted. The two men facea each other, the elbows of their right arms on the counter, the hands clasped. Slosson’s hand quickly forced backward and down. “You’re the first man that ever succeeded In doing it,” he said. “Let’s try It again.” “Sure,” Daylight answered. “And don’t forget, son, that you’re the first man that put mine down. That’s why I lit out after you today.” Again they clasped hands, and again Slosson’s hand went down. He was a broad-shouldered, heavy-mus-cled young giant, at least half a head taller than Daylight, apd he frankly expressed his chagrin and asked for a third trial. This time he steeled himself to the effort, and for a moment the Issue was In doubt. With flushed face and set teeth he met the other’s strength till his crackling muscles failed him. The air exploded sharply from his tensed lungs, as he relaxed In surrender, and the hand dropped limply down. “You’re too many for me,” he confessed. “I only hope you’ll keep out of the hammer-throwing game.” Daylight laughed and shook his head. •

“We might compromise, and each stay in his own class. You stick to hammer-throwing, and I’ll go on turning down hands.” But Slosson refused to accept defeat. “Say,” he called out, as Daylight and Dede, astride their horses, were preparing to depart. “Say—do you mind if I look you up next year? I’d like to tackle you again.” “Sure, son. You’re welcome to u. flutter any time. Though I give you fair warning that you’ll have to go some. You’ll have to train up, for I’m plowing and chopping wood and breaking colts these days.” Now and again, on the way home, Dede could hear her big boy-husband chuckling gleefully. As they halted their horses on the top of the divide out of Bennett Valley, In order to watch the sunset, e ranged alongside and slipped his arm around her waist. “Little woman,” he said, “you’re sure responsible for it all. And I leave it to you, if all the money in creation is worth as much as one arm like that when it’s got a sweet little woman like this to go around.” Daylight’s steadfast contention was that his wife should not become cook, waitress, and chambermaid because she did not happen to possess a household of servants. On the other hand, chafing-dish suppers in the big livingroom for their camping guests were a common happening, at which times Daylight allotted them their chores and saw that they were performed. For one who stopped only for the night It was different. Likewise it was different with her brother, back from Germany, and again able to sft a horse. On his vacations he became the third In the family, and to him was given the building of the fires, the sweeping, and the washing of the dishes. (To be Continued.)

“Dear Elam,” She Whispered, “Dear Elam.”

“Say,” He Called Out, “I’d Like to Tackle You Again.”