that.”
“What we want,” Letton took up the strain, pausing significantly
to sip his mineral water, “what we want is to take large blocks
of Ward Valley off the hands of the public. We could do this
easily enough by depressing the market and frightening the
holders. And we could do it more cheaply in such fashion. But
we are absolute masters of the situation, and we are fair enough
to buy Ward Valley on a rising market. Not that we are
philanthropists, but that we need the investors in our big
development scheme. Nor do we lose directly by the transaction.
The instant the action of the directors becomes known, Ward
Valley will rush heavenward. In addition, and outside the
legitimate field of the transaction, we will pinch the shorts for
a very large sum. But that is only incidental, you understand,
and in a way, unavoidable. On the other hand, we shall not turn
up our noses at that phase of it. The shorts shall be the
veriest gamblers, of course, and they will get no more than they
deserve.”
“And one other thing, Mr. Harnish,” Guggenhammer said, “if you
exceed your available cash, or the amount you care to invest in
the venture, don’t fail immediately to call on us. Remember, we
are behind you.”
“Yes, we are behind you,” Dowsett repeated.
Nathaniel Letton nodded his head in affirmation.
“Now about that double dividend on the eighteenth-” John Dowsett
drew a slip of paper from his note-book and adjusted his glasses.
“Let me show you the figures. Here, you see…”
And thereupon he entered into a long technical and historical
explanation of the earnings and dividends of Ward Valley from the
day of its organization.
The whole conference lasted not more than an hour, during which
time Daylight lived at the topmost of the highest peak of life
that he had ever scaled. These men were big players. They were
powers. True, as he knew himself, they were not the real inner
circle. They did not rank with the Morgans and Harrimans. And
yet they were in touch with those giants and were themselves
lesser giants. He was pleased, too, with their attitude toward
him. They met him deferentially, but not patronizingly. It was
the deference of equality, and Daylight could not escape the
subtle flattery of it; for he was fully aware that in experience
as well as wealth they were far and away beyond him.
Burning Daylight
92
“We’ll shake up the speculating crowd,” Leon Guggenhammer
proclaimed jubilantly, as they rose to go. “And you are the man
to do it, Mr. Harnish. They are bound to think you are on your
own, and their shears are all sharpened for the trimming of
newcomers like you.”
“They will certainly be misled,” Letton agreed, his eerie gray
eyes blazing out from the voluminous folds of the huge Mueller
with which he was swathing his neck to the ears. “Their minds
run in ruts. It is the unexpected that upsets their stereotyped
calculations–any new combination, any strange factor, any fresh
variant. And you will be all that to them, Mr. Harnish. And I
repeat, they are gamblers, and they will deserve all that befalls
them. They clog and cumber all legitimate enterprise. You have
no idea of the trouble they cause men like us–sometimes, by
their
gambling tactics, upsetting the soundest plans, even overturning
the stablest institutions.”
Dowsett and young Guggenhammer went away in one motor-car, and
Letton by himself in another. Daylight, with still in the
forefront of his consciousness all that had occurred in the
preceding hour, was deeply impressed by the scene at the moment
of departure. The three machines stood like weird night monsters
at the gravelled foot of the wide stairway under the unlighted
porte-cochere. It was a dark night, and the lights of the
motor-cars cut as sharply through the blackness as knives would
cut through solid substance. The obsequious lackey–the
automatic genie of the house which belonged to none of the three
men,–stood like a graven statue after having helped them in.
The fur-coated chauffeurs bulked dimly in their seats. One after
the other, like spurred steeds, the cars leaped into the
blackness, took the curve of the driveway, and were gone.
Daylight’s car was the last, and, peering out, he caught a
glimpse of the unlighted house that loomed hugely through the
darkness like a mountain. Whose was it? he wondered. How came
they to use it for their secret conference? Would the lackey
talk? How about the chauffeurs? Were they trusted men like
“our” Mr. Howison? Mystery? The affair was alive with it. And
hand in hand with mystery walked Power. He leaned back and
inhaled his cigarette. Big things were afoot. The cards were
shuffled even the for a mighty deal, and he was in on it. He
remembered back to his poker games with Jack Kearns, and laughed
aloud. He had played for thousands in those days on the turn of
a card; but now he was playing for millions. And on the
eighteenth, when that dividend was declared, he chuckled at the
confusion that would inevitably descend upon the men with the
sharpened shears waiting to trim him–him, Burning Daylight.
CHAPTER III
Back at his hotel, though nearly two in the morning, he found
Burning Daylight
93
the reporters waiting to interview him. Next morning there were
more. And thus, with blare of paper trumpet, was he received by
New York. Once more, with beating of toms-toms and wild
hullaballoo, his picturesque figure strode across the printed
sheet. The King of the Klondike, the hero of the Arctic, the
thirty-million-dollar millionaire of the North, had come to New
York. What had he come for? To trim the New Yorkers as he had
trimmed the Tonopah crowd in Nevada? Wall Street had best watch
out, for the wild man of Klondike had just come to town. Or,
perchance, would Wall Street trim him? Wall Street had trimmed
many wild men; would this be Burning Daylight’s fate? Daylight
grinned to himself, and gave out ambiguous interviews. It helped
the game, and he grinned again, as he meditated that Wall Street
would sure have to go some before it trimmed him.
They were prepared for him to play, and, when heavy buying of
Ward Valley began, it was quickly decided that he was the
operator. Financial gossip buzzed and hummed. He was after the
Guggenhammers once more. The story of Ophir was told over again
and sensationalized until even Daylight scarcely recognized it.
Still, it was all grist to his mill. The stock gamblers were
clearly befooled. Each day he increased his buying, and so eager
were the sellers that Ward Valley rose but slowly. “It sure
beats poker,” Daylight whispered gleefully to himself, as he
noted the perturbation he was causing. The newspapers hazarded
countless guesses and surmises, and Daylight was constantly
dogged by a small battalion of reporters. His own interviews
were gems. Discovering the delight the newspapers took in his
vernacular, in his “you-alls,” and “sures,” and “surge-ups,” he
even exaggerated these particularities of speech, exploiting the
phrases he had heard other frontiersmen use, and inventing
occasionally a new one of his own.
A wildly exciting time was his during the week preceding Thursday
the eighteenth. Not only was he gambling as he had never gambled
before, but he was gambling at the biggest table in the world and
for stakes so large that even the case-hardened habitues of that
table were compelled to sit up. In spite of the unlimited
selling, his persistent buying compelled Ward Valley steadily to
rise, and as Thursday approached, the situation became acute.
Something had to smash. How much Ward Valley was this Klondike
gambler going to buy? How much could he buy? What was the Ward
Valley crowd doing all this time? Daylight appreciated the
interviews with them that appeared–interviews delightfully
placid
and non-committal. Leon Guggenhammer even hazarded the opinion
that this Northland Croesus might possibly be making a mistake.
But not that they cared, John Dowsett explained. Nor did they
object. While in the dark regarding his intentions, of one thing
they were certain; namely, that he was bulling Ward Valley. And
they did not mind that. No matter what happened to him and his
spectacular operations, Ward Valley was all right, and would
remain
Burning Daylight
94
all right, as firm as the Rock of Gibraltar. No; they had no
Ward
Valley to sell, thank you. This purely fictitious state of the
market was bound shortly to pass, and Ward Valley was not to be
induced to change the even tenor of its way by any insane stock
exchange flurry. “It is purely gambling from beginning to end,”
were Nathaniel Letton’s words; “and we refuse to have anything to
do with it or to take notice of it in any way.”
During this time Daylight had several secret meetings with his
partners–one with Leon Guggenhammer, one with John Dowsett, and