between men who did not pursue each other, but who shared the
risks of trail and river and mountain in the pursuit of life and
treasure. Men and women pursued each other, and one must needs
bend the other to his will or hers. Comradeship was different.
There was no slavery about it; and though he, a strong man beyond
strength’s seeming, gave far more than he received, he gave not
something due but in royal largess, his gifts of toil or heroic
effort falling generously from his hands. To pack for days over
the gale-swept passes or across the mosquito-ridden marshes, and
to pack double the weight his comrade packed, did not involve
unfairness or compulsion. Each did his best. That was the
business essence of it. Some men were stronger than
others–true;
but so long as each man did his best it was fair exchange, the
business spirit was observed, and the square deal obtained.
But with women–no. Women gave little and wanted all. Women had
apron-strings and were prone to tie them about any man who looked
twice in their direction. There was the Virgin, yawning her head
off when he came in and mightily pleased that he asked her to
dance. One dance was all very well, but because he danced twice
and thrice with her and several times more, she squeezed his arm
when they asked him to sit in at poker. It was the obnoxious
apron-string, the first of the many compulsions she would exert
upon him if he gave in. Not that she was not a nice bit of a
woman, healthy and strapping and good to look upon, also a very
excellent dancer, but that she was a woman with all a woman’s
Burning Daylight
9
desire to rope him with her apron-strings and tie him hand and
foot for the branding. Better poker. Besides, he liked poker as
well as he did dancing.
He resisted the pull on his arm by the mere negative mass of him,
and said:-
“I sort of feel a hankering to give you-all a flutter.”
Again came the pull on his arm. She was trying to pass the
apron-string around him. For the fraction of an instant he was a
savage, dominated by the wave of fear and murder that rose up in
him. For that infinitesimal space of time he was to all purposes
a frightened tiger filled with rage and terror at the
apprehension of the trap. Had he been no more than a savage, he
would have leapt wildly from the place or else sprung upon her
and destroyed her. But in that same instant there stirred in him
the generations of discipline by which man had become an
inadequate social animal. Tact and sympathy strove with him, and
he smiled with his eyes into the Virgin’s eyes as he said:-
“You-all go and get some grub. I ain’t hungry. And we’ll dance
some more by and by. The night’s young yet. Go to it, old
girl.”
He released his arm and thrust her playfully on the shoulder, at
the same time turning to the poker-players.
“Take off the limit and I’ll go you-all.”
“Limit’s the roof,” said Jack Kearns.
“Take off the roof.”
The players glanced at one another, and Kearns announced, “The
roof’s off.”
Elam Harnish dropped into the waiting chair, started to pull out
his gold-sack, and changed his mind. The Virgin pouted a moment,
then followed in the wake of the other dancers.
“I’ll bring you a sandwich, Daylight,” she called back over her
shoulder.
He nodded. She was smiling her forgiveness. He had escaped the
apron-string, and without hurting her feelings too severely.
“Let’s play markers,” he suggested. “Chips do everlastingly
clutter up the table….If it’s agreeable to you-all?”
“I’m willing,” answered Hal Campbell. “Let mine run at five
hundred.”
Burning Daylight
10
“Mine, too,” answered Harnish, while the others stated the values
they put on their own markers, French Louis, the most modest,
issuing his at a hundred dollars each.
In Alaska, at that time, there were no rascals and no tin-horn
gamblers. Games were conducted honestly, and men trusted one
another. A man’s word was as good as his gold in the blower. A
marker was a flat, oblong composition chip worth, perhaps, a
cent. But when a man betted a marker in a game and said it was
worth five hundred dollars, it was accepted as worth five hundred
dollars. Whoever won it knew that the man who issued it would
redeem it with five hundred dollars’ worth of dust weighed out on
the scales. The markers being of different colors, there was no
difficulty in identifying the owners. Also, in that early Yukon
day, no one dreamed of playing table-stakes. A man was good in a
game for all that he possessed, no matter where his possessions
were or what was their nature.
Harnish cut and got the deal. At this good augury, and while
shuffling the deck, he called to the barkeepers to set up the
drinks for the house. As he dealt the first card to Dan
MacDonald, on his left, he called out:
“Get down to the ground, you-all, Malemutes, huskies, and Siwash
purps! Get down and dig in! Tighten up them traces! Put your
weight into the harness and bust the breast-bands! Whoop-la!
Yow! We’re off and bound for Helen Breakfast! And I tell
you-all clear and plain there’s goin’ to be stiff grades and fast
goin’ to-night before we win to that same lady. And somebody’s
goin’ to bump…hard.”
Once started, it was a quiet game, with little or no
conversation, though all about the players the place was a-roar.
Elam Harnish had ignited the spark. More and more miners dropped
in to the Tivoli and remained. When Burning Daylight went on the
tear, no man cared to miss it. The dancing-floor was full.
Owing to the shortage of women, many of the men tied bandanna
handkerchiefs around their arms in token of femininity and danced
with other men. All the games were crowded, and the voices of
the men talking at the long bar and grouped about the stove were
accompanied by the steady click of chips and the sharp whir,
rising and falling, of the roulette-ball. All the materials of a
proper Yukon night were at hand and mixing.
The luck at the table varied monotonously, no big hands being
out. As a result, high play went on with small hands though no
play lasted long. A filled straight belonging to French Louis
gave him a pot of five thousand against two sets of threes held
by Campbell and Kearns. One pot of eight hundred dollars was won
by a pair of trays on a showdown. And once Harnish called Kearns
for two thousand dollars on a cold steal. When Kearns laid down
his hand it showed a bobtail flush, while Harnish’s hand proved
that he had had the nerve to call on a pair of tens.
Burning Daylight
11
But at three in the morning the big combination of hands arrived.
It was the moment of moments that men wait weeks for in a poker
game. The news of it tingled over the Tivoli. The onlookers
became quiet. The men farther away ceased talking and moved over
to the table. The players deserted the other games, and the
dancing-floor was forsaken, so that all stood at last, fivescore
and more, in a compact and silent group, around the poker-table.
The high betting had begun before the draw, and still the high
betting went on, with the draw not in sight. Kearns had dealt,
and French Louis had opened the pot with one marker–in his case
one hundred dollars. Campbell had merely “seen” it, but Elam
Harnish, corning next, had tossed in five hundred dollars, with
the remark to MacDonald that he was letting him in easy.
MacDonald, glancing again at his hand, put in a thousand in
markers. Kearns, debating a long time over his hand, finally
“saw.” It then cost French Louis nine hundred to remain in the
game, which he contributed after a similar debate. It cost
Campbell likewise nine hundred to remain and draw cards, but to
the surprise of all he saw the nine hundred and raised another
thousand.
“You-all are on the grade at last,” Harnish remarked, as he saw
the fifteen hundred and raised a thousand in turn. “Helen
Breakfast’s sure on top this divide, and you-all had best look
out for bustin’ harness.”
“Me for that same lady,” accompanied MacDonald’s markers for two
thousand and for an additional thousand-dollar raise.
It was at this stage that the players sat up and knew beyond
peradventure that big hands were out. Though their features
showed nothing, each man was beginning unconsciously to tense.
Each man strove to appear his natural self, and each natural self
was different. Hal Campbell affected his customary cautiousness.
French Louis betrayed interest. MacDonald retained his
whole-souled benevolence, though it seemed to take on a slightly