service of Daylight’s new electric roads into Oakland made this
big district immediately accessible, and long before the ferry
system was in operation hundreds of residences were going up.
The profit on this land was enormous. In a day, his onslaught of
wealth had turned open farming country into one of the best
residential districts of the city.
But this money that flowed in upon him was immediately poured
back into his other investments. The need for electric cars was
so great that he installed his own shops for building them. And
even on the rising land market, he continued to buy choice
factory sites and building properties. On the advice of
Wilkinson, practically every electric road already in operation
was rebuilt. The light, old fashioned rails were torn out and
replaced by the heaviest that were manufactured. Corner lots, on
the sharp turns of narrow streets, were bought and ruthlessly
presented to the city in order to make wide curves for his tracks
and high speed for his cars. Then, too, there were the main-line
feeders for his ferry system, tapping every portion of Oakland,
Alameda, and Berkeley, and running fast expresses to the pier
end. The same large-scale methods were employed in the water
system. Service of the best was needed, if his huge land
investment was to succeed. Oakland had to be made into a
worth-while city, and that was what he intended to do. In
addition to his big hotels, he built amusement parks for the
common people, and art galleries and club-house country inns for
the more finicky classes. Even before there was any increase in
population, a marked increase in street-railway traffic took
place. There was nothing fanciful about his schemes. They were
sound investments.
“What Oakland wants is a first glass theatre,” he said, and,
after vainly trying to interest local capital, he started the
building of the theatre himself; for he alone had vision for the
two hundred thousand new people that were coming to the town.
But no matter what pressure was on Daylight, his Sundays he
reserved for his riding in the hills. It was not the winter
weather, however, that brought these rides with Dede to an end.
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177
One Saturday afternoon in the office she told him not to expect
to meet her next day, and, when he pressed for an explanation:
“I’ve sold Mab.”
Daylight was speechless for the moment. Her act meant one of so
many serious things that he couldn’t classify it. It smacked
almost of treachery. She might have met with financial disaster.
It might be her way of letting him know she had seen enough of
him. Or…
“What’s the matter?” he managed to ask.
“I couldn’t afford to keep her with hay forty-five dollars a
ton,” Dede answered.
“Was that your only reason?” he demanded, looking at her
steadily; for he remembered her once telling him how she had
brought the mare through one winter, five years before, when hay
had gone as high as sixty dollars a ton.
“No. My brother’s expenses have been higher, as well, and I was
driven to the conclusion that since I could not afford both, I’d
better let the mare go and keep the brother.”
Daylight felt inexpressibly saddened. He was suddenly aware of a
great emptiness. What would a Sunday be without Dede? And
Sundays without end without her? He drummed perplexedly on the
desk with his fingers.
“Who bought her?” he asked. Dede’s eyes flashed in the way long
since familiar to him when she was angry.
“Don’t you dare buy her back for me,” she cried. “And don’t deny
that that was what you had in mind.”
“I won’t deny it. It was my idea to a tee. But I wouldn’t have
done it without asking you first, and seeing how you feel about
it, I won’t even ask you. But you thought a heap of that mare,
and it’s pretty hard on you to lose her. I’m sure sorry. And
I’m sorry, too, that you won’t be riding with me tomorrow. I’ll
be plumb lost. I won’t know what to do with myself.”
“Neither shall I,” Dede confessed mournfully, “except that I
shall be able to catch up with my sewing.”
“But I haven’t any sewing.”
Daylight’s tone was whimsically plaintive, but secretly he was
delighted with her confession of loneliness. It was almost worth
the loss of the mare to get that out of her. At any rate, he
meant something to her. He was not utterly unliked.
Burning Daylight
178
“I wish you would reconsider, Miss Mason,” he said softly. “Not
alone for the mare’s sake, but for my sake. Money don’t cut any
ice in this. For me to buy that mare wouldn’t mean as it does to
most men to send a bouquet of flowers or a box of candy to a
young lady. And I’ve never sent you flowers or candy.” He
observed the warning flash of her eyes, and hurried on to escape
refusal. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. Suppose I buy the mare
and own her myself, and lend her to you when you want to ride.
There’s nothing wrong in that. Anybody borrows a horse from
anybody, you know.”
Agin he saw refusal, and headed her off.
“Lots of men take women buggy-riding. There’s nothing wrong in
that. And the man always furnishes the horse and buggy. Well,
now, what’s the difference between my taking you buggy-riding and
furnishing the horse and buggy, and taking you horse-back-riding
and furnishing the horses?”
She shook her head, and declined to answer, at the same time
looking at the door as if to intimate that it was time for this
unbusinesslike conversation to end. He made one more effort.
“Do you know, Miss Mason, I haven’t a friend in the world outside
you? I mean a real friend, man or woman, the kind you chum with,
you know, and that you’re glad to be with and sorry to be away
from. Hegan is the nearest man I get to, and he’s a million
miles away from me. Outside business, we don’t hitch. He’s got
a big library of books, and some crazy kind of culture, and he
spends all his off times reading things in French and German and
other outlandish lingoes–when he ain’t writing plays and poetry.
There’s nobody I feel chummy with except you, and you know how
little we’ve chummed–once a week, if it didn’t rain, on Sunday.
I’ve grown kind of to depend on you. You’re a sort of–of–of–”
“A sort of habit,” she said with a smile.
“That’s about it. And that mare, and you astride of her, coming
along the road under the trees or through the sunshine–why, with
both you and the mare missing, there won’t be anything worth
waiting through the week for. If you’d just let me buy her
back–”
“No, no; I tell you no.” Dede rose impatiently, but her eyes
were moist with the memory of her pet. “Please don’t mention her
to me again. If you think it was easy to part with her, you are
mistaken. But I’ve seen the last of her, and I want to forget
her.”
Daylight made no answer, and the door closed behind him.
Half an hour later he was conferring with Jones, the erstwhile
Burning Daylight
179
elevator boy and rabid proletarian whom Daylight long before had
grubstaked to literature for a year. The resulting novel had
been a failure. Editors and publishers would not look at it, and
now Daylight was using the disgruntled author in a little private
secret service system he had been compelled to establish for
himself. Jones, who affected to be surprised at nothing after
his crushing experience with railroad freight rates on firweood
and charcoal, betrayed no surprise now when the task was given to
him to locate the purchaser of a certain sorrel mare.
“How high shall I pay for her?” he asked.
“Any price. You’ve got to get her, that’s the point. Drive a
sharp bargain so as not to excite suspicion, but her. Then you
deliver her to that address up in Sonoma County. The man’s the
caretaker on a little ranch I have there. Tell him he’s to take
whacking good care of her. And after that forget all about it.
Don’t tell me the name of the man you buy her from. Don’t tell
me anything about it except that you’ve got her and delivered
her. Savvee?”
But the week had not passed, when Daylight noted the flash in
Dede’s eyes that boded trouble.
“Something’s gone wrong–what is it?” he asked boldly.
“Mab,” she said. “The man who bought her has sold her already.
If I thought you had anything to do with it–”
“I don’t even know who you sold her to,” was Daylight’s answer.
“And what’s more, I’m not bothering my head about her. She was
your mare, and it’s none of my business what you did with her.