Burning Daylight

"Take your hand away, you whited sepulchre!" he cried sharply.

Nathaniel Letton"s hand, creeping toward the push-b.u.t.ton on the desk, was abruptly arrested.

"Change chairs," Daylight commanded. "Take that chair over there, you gangrene-livered skunk. Jump! By G.o.d! or I"ll make you leak till folks"ll think your father was a water hydrant and your mother a sprinkling-cart. You-all move your chair alongside, Guggenhammer; and you-all Dowsett, sit right there, while I just irrelevantly explain the virtues of this here automatic. She"s loaded for big game and she goes off eight times. She"s a sure hummer when she gets started.

"Preliminary remarks being over, I now proceed to deal. Remember, I ain"t making no remarks about your deal. You done your darndest, and it was all right. But this is my deal, and it"s up to me to do my darndest. In the first place, you-all know me. I"m Burning Daylight--savvee? Ain"t afraid of G.o.d, devil, death, nor destruction.

Them"s my four aces, and they sure copper your bets. Look at that there living skeleton. Letton, you"re sure afraid to die. Your bones is all rattling together you"re that scared. And look at that fat Jew there. This little weapon"s sure put the fear of G.o.d in his heart.

He"s yellow as a sick persimmon. Dowsett, you"re a cool one. You-all ain"t batted an eye nor turned a hair. That"s because you"re great on arithmetic. And that makes you-all dead easy in this deal of mine.

You"re sitting there and adding two and two together, and you-all know I sure got you skinned. You know me, and that I ain"t afraid of nothing. And you-all adds up all your money and knows you ain"t a-going to die if you can help it."

"I"ll see you hanged," was Dowsett"s retort.

"Not by a d.a.m.ned sight. When the fun starts, you"re the first I plug.

I"ll hang all right, but you-all won"t live to see it. You-all die here and now while I"ll die subject to the law"s delay--savvee? Being dead, with gra.s.s growing out of your carca.s.ses, you won"t know when I hang, but I"ll sure have the pleasure a long time of knowing you-all beat me to it."

Daylight paused.

"You surely wouldn"t kill us?" Letton asked in a queer, thin voice.

Daylight shook his head.

"It"s sure too expensive. You-all ain"t worth it. I"d sooner have my chips back. And I guess you-all"d sooner give my chips back than go to the dead-house."

A long silence followed.

"Well, I"ve done dealt. It"s up to you-all to play. But while you"re deliberating, I want to give you-all a warning: if that door opens and any one of you cusses lets on there"s anything unusual, right here and then I sure start plugging. They ain"t a soul"ll get out the room except feet first."

A long session of three hours followed. The deciding factor was not the big automatic pistol, but the cert.i.tude that Daylight would use it.

Not alone were the three men convinced of this, but Daylight himself was convinced. He was firmly resolved to kill the men if his money was not forthcoming. It was not an easy matter, on the spur of the moment, to raise ten millions in paper currency, and there were vexatious delays. A dozen times Mr. Howison and the head clerk were summoned into the room. On these occasions the pistol lay on Daylight"s lap, covered carelessly by a newspaper, while he was usually engaged in rolling or lighting his brown-paper cigarettes. But in the end, the thing was accomplished. A suit-case was brought up by one of the clerks from the waiting motor-car, and Daylight snapped it shut on the last package of bills. He paused at the door to make his final remarks.

"There"s three several things I sure want to tell you-all. When I get outside this door, you-all"ll be set free to act, and I just want to warn you-all about what to do. In the first place, no warrants for my arrest--savvee? This money"s mine, and I ain"t robbed you of it. If it gets out how you gave me the double-cross and how I done you back again, the laugh"ll be on you, and it"ll sure be an almighty big laugh.

You-all can"t afford that laugh. Besides, having got back my stake that you-all robbed me of, if you arrest me and try to rob me a second time, I"ll go gunning for you-all, and I"ll sure get you. No little fraid-cat shrimps like you-all can skin Burning Daylight. If you win you lose, and there"ll sure be some several unexpected funerals around this burg.

"Just look me in the eye, and you-all"ll savvee I mean business. Them stubs and receipts on the table is all yourn. Good day."

As the door shut behind him, Nathaniel Letton sprang for the telephone, and Dowsett intercepted him.

"What are you going to do?" Dowsett demanded.

"The police. It"s downright robbery. I won"t stand it. I tell you I won"t stand it."

Dowsett smiled grimly, but at the same time bore the slender financier back and down into his chair.

"We"ll talk it over," he said; and in Leon Guggenhammer he found an anxious ally.

And nothing ever came of it. The thing remained a secret with the three men. Nor did Daylight ever give the secret away, though that afternoon, leaning back in his stateroom on the Twentieth Century, his shoes off, and feet on a chair, he chuckled long and heartily. New York remained forever puzzled over the affair; nor could it hit upon a rational explanation. By all rights, Burning Daylight should have gone broke, yet it was known that he immediately reappeared in San Francisco possessing an apparently unimpaired capital. This was evidenced by the magnitude of the enterprises he engaged in, such as, for instance, Panama Mail, by sheer weight of money and fighting power wresting the control away from Shiftily and selling out in two months to the Harriman interests at a rumored enormous advance.

CHAPTER V

Back in San Francisco, Daylight quickly added to his reputation In ways it was not an enviable reputation. Men were afraid of him. He became known as a fighter, a fiend, a tiger. His play was a ripping and smashing one, and no one knew where or how his next blow would fall.

The element of surprise was large. He balked on the unexpected, and, fresh from the wild North, his mind not operating in stereotyped channels, he was able in unusual degree to devise new tricks and stratagems. And once he won the advantage, he pressed it remorselessly. "As relentless as a Red Indian," was said of him, and it was said truly.

On the other hand, he was known as "square." His word was as good as his bond, and this despite the fact that he accepted n.o.body"s word. He always shied at propositions based on gentlemen"s agreements, and a man who ventured his honor as a gentleman, in dealing with Daylight, inevitably was treated to an unpleasant time. Daylight never gave his own word unless he held the whip-hand. It was a case with the other fellow taking it or nothing.

Legitimate investment had no place in Daylight"s play. It tied up his money, and reduced the element of risk. It was the gambling side of business that fascinated him, and to play in his slashing manner required that his money must be ready to hand. It was never tied up save for short intervals, for he was princ.i.p.ally engaged in turning it over and over, raiding here, there, and everywhere, a veritable pirate of the financial main. A five-per cent safe investment had no attraction for him; but to risk millions in sharp, harsh skirmish, standing to lose everything or to win fifty or a hundred per cent, was the savor of life to him. He played according to the rules of the game, but he played mercilessly. When he got a man or a corporation down and they squealed, he gouged no less hard. Appeals for financial mercy fell on deaf ears. He was a free lance, and had no friendly business a.s.sociations. Such alliances as were formed from time to time were purely affairs of expediency, and he regarded his allies as men who would give him the double-cross or ruin him if a profitable chance presented. In spite of this point of view, he was faithful to his allies. But he was faithful just as long as they were and no longer.

The treason had to come from them, and then it was "Ware Daylight.

The business men and financiers of the Pacific coast never forgot the lesson of Charles Klinkner and the California & Altamont Trust Company.

Klinkner was the president. In partnership with Daylight, the pair raided the San Jose Interurban. The powerful Lake Power & Electric Lighting corporation came to the rescue, and Klinkner, seeing what he thought was the opportunity, went over to the enemy in the thick of the pitched battle. Daylight lost three millions before he was done with it, and before he was done with it he saw the California & Altamont Trust Company hopelessly wrecked, and Charles Klinkner a suicide in a felon"s cell. Not only did Daylight lose his grip on San Jose Interurban, but in the crash of his battle front he lost heavily all along the line. It was conceded by those competent to judge that he could have compromised and saved much. But, instead, he deliberately threw up the battle with San Jose Interurban and Lake Power, and, apparently defeated, with Napoleonic suddenness struck at Klinkner. It was the last unexpected thing Klinkner would have dreamed of, and Daylight knew it. He knew, further, that the California & Altamont Trust Company has an intrinsically sound inst.i.tution, but that just then it was in a precarious condition due to Klinkner"s speculations with its money. He knew, also, that in a few months the Trust Company would be more firmly on its feet than ever, thanks to those same speculations, and that if he were to strike he must strike immediately.

"It"s just that much money in pocket and a whole lot more," he was reported to have said in connection with his heavy losses. "It"s just so much insurance against the future. Henceforth, men who go in with me on deals will think twice before they try to double-cross me, and then some."

The reason for his savageness was that he despised the men with whom he played. He had a conviction that not one in a hundred of them was intrinsically square; and as for the square ones, he prophesied that, playing in a crooked game, they were sure to lose and in the long run go broke. His New York experience had opened his eyes. He tore the veils of illusion from the business game, and saw its nakedness. He generalized upon industry and society somewhat as follows:--

Society, as organized, was a vast bunco game. There were many hereditary inefficients--men and women who were not weak enough to be confined in feeble-minded homes, but who were not strong enough to be ought else than hewers of wood and drawers of water.

Then there were the fools who took the organized bunco game seriously, honoring and respecting it. They were easy game for the others, who saw clearly and knew the bunco game for what it was.

Work, legitimate work, was the source of all wealth. That was to say, whether it was a sack of potatoes, a grand piano, or a seven-pa.s.senger touring car, it came into being only by the performance of work. Where the bunco came in was in the distribution of these things after labor had created them. He failed to see the h.o.r.n.y-handed sons of toil enjoying grand pianos or riding in automobiles. How this came about was explained by the bunco. By tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands men sat up nights and schemed how they could get between the workers and the things the workers produced. These schemers were the business men. When they got between the worker and his product, they took a whack out of it for themselves The size of the whack was determined by no rule of equity; but by their own strength and swinishness. It was always a case of "all the traffic can bear." He saw all men in the business game doing this.

One day, in a mellow mood (induced by a string of c.o.c.ktails and a hearty lunch), he started a conversation with Jones, the elevator boy.

Jones was a slender, mop-headed, man-grown, truculent flame of an individual who seemed to go out of his way to insult his pa.s.sengers.

It was this that attracted Daylight"s interest, and he was not long in finding out what was the matter with Jones. He was a proletarian, according to his own aggressive cla.s.sification, and he had wanted to write for a living. Failing to win with the magazines, and compelled to find himself in food and shelter, he had gone to the little valley of Petacha, not a hundred miles from Los Angeles. Here, toiling in the day-time, he planned to write and study at night. But the railroad charged all the traffic would bear. Petacha was a desert valley, and produced only three things: cattle, fire-wood, and charcoal. For freight to Los Angeles on a carload of cattle the railroad charged eight dollars. This, Jones explained, was due to the fact that the cattle had legs and could be driven to Los Angeles at a cost equivalent to the charge per car load. But firewood had no legs, and the railroad charged just precisely twenty-four dollars a carload.

This was a fine adjustment, for by working hammer-and-tongs through a twelve-hour day, after freight had been deducted from the selling price of the wood in Los Angeles, the wood-chopper received one dollar and sixty cents. Jones had thought to get ahead of the game by turning his wood into charcoal. His estimates were satisfactory. But the railroad also made estimates. It issued a rate of forty-two dollars a car on charcoal. At the end of three months, Jones went over his figures, and found that he was still making one dollar and sixty cents a day.

"So I quit," Jones concluded. "I went hobbling for a year, and I got back at the railroads. Leaving out the little things, I came across the Sierras in the summer and touched a match to the snow-sheds. They only had a little thirty-thousand-dollar fire. I guess that squared up all balances due on Petacha."

"Son, ain"t you afraid to be turning loose such information?" Daylight gravely demanded.

"Not on your life," quoth Jones. "They can"t prove it. You could say I said so, and I could say I didn"t say so, and a h.e.l.l of a lot that evidence would amount to with a jury."

Daylight went into his office and meditated awhile. That was it: all the traffic would bear. From top to bottom, that was the rule of the game; and what kept the game going was the fact that a sucker was born every minute. If a Jones were born every minute, the game wouldn"t last very long. Lucky for the players that the workers weren"t Joneses.

But there were other and larger phases of the game. Little business men, shopkeepers, and such ilk took what whack they could out of the product of the worker; but, after all, it was the large business men who formed the workers through the little business men. When all was said and done, the latter, like Jones in Petacha Valley, got no more than wages out of their whack. In truth, they were hired men for the large business men. Still again, higher up, were the big fellows.

They used vast and complicated paraphernalia for the purpose, on a large scale of getting between hundreds of thousands of workers and their products. These men were not so much mere robbers as gamblers.

And, not content with their direct winnings, being essentially gamblers, they raided one another. They called this feature of the game HIGH FINANCE. They were all engaged primarily in robbing the worker, but every little while they formed combinations and robbed one another of the acc.u.mulated loot. This explained the fifty-thousand-dollar raid on him by Holdsworthy and the ten-million-dollar raid on him by Dowsett, Letton, and Guggenhammer.

And when he raided Panama Mail he had done exactly the same thing.

Well, he concluded, it was finer sport robbing the robbers than robbing the poor stupid workers.

Thus, all unread in philosophy, Daylight preempted for himself the position and vocation of a twentieth-century superman. He found, with rare and mythical exceptions, that there was no n.o.blesse oblige among the business and financial supermen. As a clever traveler had announced in an after-dinner speech at the Alta-Pacific, "There was honor amongst thieves, and this was what distinguished thieves from honest men." That was it. It hit the nail on the head. These modern supermen were a lot of sordid banditti who had the successful effrontery to preach a code of right and wrong to their victims which they themselves did not practise. With them, a man"s word was good just as long as he was compelled to keep it. THOU SHALT NOT STEAL was only applicable to the honest worker. They, the supermen, were above such commandments. They certainly stole and were honored by their fellows according to the magnitude of their stealings.

The more Daylight played the game, the clearer the situation grew.

Despite the fact that every robber was keen to rob every other robber, the band was well organized. It practically controlled the political machinery of society, from the ward politician up to the Senate of the United States. It pa.s.sed laws that gave it privilege to rob. It enforced these laws by means of the police, the marshals, the militia and regular army, and the courts. And it was a snap. A superman"s chiefest danger was his fellow-superman. The great stupid ma.s.s of the people did not count. They were const.i.tuted of such inferior clay that the veriest chicanery fooled them. The superman manipulated the strings, and when robbery of the workers became too slow or monotonous, they turned loose and robbed one another.

Daylight was philosophical, but not a philosopher. He had never read the books. He was a hard-headed, practical man, and farthest from him was any intention of ever reading the books. He had lived life in the simple, where books were not necessary for an understanding of life, and now life in the complex appeared just as simple. He saw through its frauds and fictions, and found it as elemental as on the Yukon.

Men were made of the same stuff. They had the same pa.s.sions and desires. Finance was poker on a larger scale. The men who played were the men who had stakes. The workers were the fellows toiling for grubstakes. He saw the game played out according to the everlasting rules, and he played a hand himself. The gigantic futility of humanity organized and befuddled by the bandits did not shock him. It was the natural order. Practically all human endeavors were futile. He had seen so much of it. His partners had starved and died on the Stewart.