drunken and clamorous, winning surcease for a few wild moments
from the grim reality of their heroic toil. Modern heroes they,
and in nowise different from the heroes of old time. “Well,
fellows, I don’t know what to say to you-all,” Daylight began
lamely, striving still to control his whirling brain. “I think
I’ll tell you-all a story. I had a pardner wunst, down in
Juneau. He come from North Caroliney, and he used to tell this
same story to me. It was down in the mountains in his country,
and it was a wedding. There they was, the family and all the
friends. The parson was just puttin’ on the last touches, and he
says, ‘They as the Lord have joined let no man put asunder.’
[3] Muc-luc: a water-tight, Eskimo boot, made from walrus-hide
and trimmed with fur.
“‘Parson,’ says the bridegroom, ‘I rises to question your
grammar in that there sentence. I want this weddin’ done right.’
“When the smoke clears away, the bride she looks around and sees
a dead parson, a dead bridegroom, a dead brother, two dead
uncles, and five dead wedding-guests.
“So she heaves a mighty strong sigh and says, ‘Them new-fangled,
self-cocking revolvers sure has played hell with my prospects.’
“And so I say to you-all,” Daylight added, as the roar of
laughter died down, “that them four kings of Jack Kearns sure has
played hell with my prospects. I’m busted higher’n a kite, and
I’m hittin’ the trail for Dyea–”
“Goin’ out?” some one called. A spasm of anger wrought on his
face for a flashing instant, but in the next his good-humor was
back again.
“I know you-all are only pokin’ fun asking such a question,” he
said, with a smile. “Of course I ain’t going out.”
“Take the oath again, Daylight,” the same voice cried.
“I sure will. I first come over Chilcoot in ’83. I went out
over the Pass in a fall blizzard, with a rag of a shirt and a cup
of raw flour. I got my grub-stake in Juneau that winter, and in
the spring I went over the Pass once more. And once more the
famine drew me out. Next spring I went in again, and I swore
then that I’d never come out till I made my stake. Well, I ain’t
made it, and here I am. And I ain’t going out now. I get the
mail and I come right back. I won’t stop the night at Dyea.
Burning Daylight
24
I’ll hit up Chilcoot soon as I change the dogs and get the mail
and grub. And so I swear once more, by the mill-tails of hell
and the head of John the Baptist, I’ll never hit for the Outside
till I make my pile. And I tell you-all, here and now, it’s got
to be an almighty big pile.”
“How much might you call a pile?” Bettles demanded from beneath,
his arms clutched lovingly around Daylight’s legs.
“Yes, how much? What do you call a pile?” others cried.
Daylight steadied himself for a moment and debated. “Four or
five millions,” he said slowly, and held up his hand for silence
as his statement was received with derisive yells. “I’ll be real
conservative, and put the bottom notch at a million. And for not
an ounce less’n that will I go out of the country.”
Again his statement was received with an outburst of derision.
Not only had the total gold output of the Yukon up to date been
below five millions, but no man had ever made a strike of a
hundred thousand, much less of a million.
“You-all listen to me. You seen Jack Kearns get a hunch
to-night. We had him sure beat before the draw. His ornery
three kings was no good. But he just knew there was another king
coming–that was his hunch–and he got it. And I tell you-all I
got a hunch. There’s a big strike coming on the Yukon, and it’s
just about due. I don’t mean no ornery Moosehide, Birch-Creek
kind of a strike. I mean a real rip-snorter hair-raiser. I tell
you-all she’s in the air and hell-bent for election. Nothing can
stop her, and she’ll come up river. There’s where you-all track
my moccasins in the near future if you-all want to find
me–somewhere in the country around Stewart River, Indian River,
and Klondike River. When I get back with the mail, I’ll head
that way so fast you-all won’t see my trail for smoke. She’s
a-coming, fellows, gold from the grass roots down, a hundred
dollars to the pan, and a stampede in from the Outside fifty
thousand strong. You-all’ll think all hell’s busted loose when
that strike is made.”
He raised his glass to his lips. “Here’s kindness, and hoping
you-all will be in on it.”
He drank and stepped down from the chair, falling into another
one of Bettles’ bear-hugs.
“If I was you, Daylight, I wouldn’t mush to-day,” Joe Hines
counselled, coming in from consulting the spirit thermometer
outside the door. “We’re in for a good cold snap. It’s
sixty-two below now, and still goin’ down. Better wait till she
breaks.”
Daylight laughed, and the old sour-doughs around him laughed.
Burning Daylight
25
“Just like you short-horns,” Bettles cried, “afeard of a little
frost. And blamed little you know Daylight, if you think frost
kin stop ‘m.”
“Freeze his lungs if he travels in it,” was the reply.
“Freeze pap and lollypop! Look here, Hines, you only ben in this
here country three years. You ain’t seasoned yet. I’ve seen
Daylight do fifty miles up on the Koyokuk on a day when the
thermometer busted at seventy-two.”
Hines shook his head dolefully.
“Them’s the kind that does freeze their lungs,” he lamented. “If
Daylight pulls out before this snap breaks, he’ll never get
through–an’ him travelin’ without tent or fly.”
“It’s a thousand miles to Dyea,” Bettles announced, climbing on
the chair and supporting his swaying body by an arm passed around
Daylight’s neck. “It’s a thousand miles, I’m sayin’ an’ most of
the trail unbroke, but I bet any chechaquo–anything he
wants–that
Daylight makes Dyea in thirty days.”
“That’s an average of over thirty-three miles a day,” Doc Watson
warned, “and I’ve travelled some myself. A blizzard on Chilcoot
would tie him up for a week.”
“Yep,” Bettles retorted, “an’ Daylight’ll do the second thousand
back again on end in thirty days more, and I got five hundred
dollars that says so, and damn the blizzards.”
To emphasize his remarks, he pulled out a gold-sack the size of a
bologna sausage and thumped it down on the bar. Doc Watson
thumped his own sack alongside.
“Hold on!” Daylight cried. “Bettles’s right, and I want in on
this. I bet five hundred that sixty days from now I pull up at
the Tivoli door with the Dyea mail.”
A sceptical roar went up, and a dozen men pulled out their sacks.
Jack Kearns crowded in close and caught Daylight’s attention.
“I take you,Daylight,” he cried. “Two to one you don’t–not in
seventy-five days.”
“No charity, Jack,” was the reply. “The bettin’s even, and the
time is sixty days.”
“Seventy-five days, and two to one you don’t,” Kearns insisted.
“Fifty Mile’ll be wide open and the rim-ice rotten.”
Burning Daylight
26
“What you win from me is yours,” Daylight went on. “And, by
thunder, Jack, you can’t give it back that way. I won’t bet with
you. You’re trying to give me money. But I tell you-all one
thing, Jack, I got another hunch. I’m goin’ to win it back some
one of these days. You-all just wait till the big strike up
river. Then you and me’ll take the roof off and sit in a game
that’ll be full man’s size. Is it a go?”
They shook hands.
“Of course he’ll make it,” Kearns whispered in Bettles’ ear.
“And there’s five hundred Daylight’s back in sixty days,” he
added aloud.
Billy Rawlins closed with the wager, and Bettles hugged Kearns
ecstatically.
“By Yupiter, I ban take that bet,” Olaf Henderson said, dragging
Daylight away from Bettles and Kearns.
“Winner pays!” Daylight shouted, closing the wager.
“And I’m sure going to win, and sixty days is a long time between
drinks, so I pay now. Name your brand, you hoochinoos! Name
your
brand!”
Bettles, a glass of whiskey in hand, climbed back on his chair,
and swaying back and forth, sang the one song he knew:-
“O, it’s Henry Ward Beecher
And Sunday-school teachers
All sing of the sassafras-root;
But you bet all the same,
If it had its right name
It’s the juice of the forbidden fruit.”
The crowd roared out the chorus:-
“But you bet all the same
If it had its right name
It’s the juice of the forbidden fruit.”
Somebody opened the outer door. A vague gray light filtered in.
“Burning daylight, burning daylight,” some one called warningly.
Daylight paused for nothing, heading for the door and pulling