Burning Daylight | Page 6

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puckers at the corners of the eyes gave him laughter. These necessary
graces saved him from a nature that was essentially savage and that
otherwise would have been cruel and bitter. The nose was lean,
full-nostrilled, and delicate, and of a size to fit the face; while the high
forehead, as if to atone for its narrowness, was splendidly domed and
symmetrical. In line with the Indian effect was his hair, very straight
and very black, with a gloss to it that only health could give.
"Burning Daylight's burning candlelight," laughed Dan MacDonald, as
an outburst of exclamations and merriment came from the dancers.
"An' he is der boy to do it, eh, Louis?" said Olaf Henderson.
"Yes, by Gar! you bet on dat," said French Louis. "Dat boy is all
gold--"
"And when God Almighty washes Daylight's soul out on the last big
slucin' day," MacDonald interrupted, "why, God Almighty'll have to
shovel gravel along with him into the sluice-boxes."
"Dot iss goot," Olaf Henderson muttered, regarding the gambler with
profound admiration.
"Ver' good," affirmed French Louis. "I t'ink we take a drink on dat one
time, eh?"
CHAPTER II
It was two in the morning when the dancers, bent on getting something
to eat, adjourned the dancing for half an hour. And it was at this
moment that Jack Kearns suggested poker. Jack Kearns was a big,
bluff-featured man, who, along with Bettles, had made the disastrous
attempt to found a post on the head-reaches of the Koyokuk, far inside
the Arctic Circle. After that, Kearns had fallen back on his posts at
Forty Mile and Sixty Mile and changed the direction of his ventures by
sending out to the States for a small sawmill and a river steamer. The
former was even then being sledded across Chilcoot Pass by Indians

and dogs, and would come down the Yukon in the early summer after
the ice-run. Later in the summer, when Bering Sea and the mouth of the
Yukon cleared of ice, the steamer, put together at St. Michaels, was to
be expected up the river loaded to the guards with supplies.
Jack Kearns suggested poker. French Louis, Dan MacDonald, and Hal
Campbell (who had make a strike on Moosehide), all three of whom
were not dancing because there were not girls enough to go around,
inclined to the suggestion. They were looking for a fifth man when
Burning Daylight emerged from the rear room, the Virgin on his arm,
the train of dancers in his wake. In response to the hail of the
poker-players, he came over to their table in the corner.
"Want you to sit in," said Campbell. "How's your luck?"
"I sure got it to-night," Burning Daylight answered with enthusiasm,
and at the same time felt the Virgin press his arm warningly. She
wanted him for the dancing. "I sure got my luck with me, but I'd sooner
dance. I ain't hankerin' to take the money away from you-all."
Nobody urged. They took his refusal as final, and the Virgin was
pressing his arm to turn him away in pursuit of the supper-seekers,
when he experienced a change of heart. It was not that he did not want
to dance, nor that he wanted to hurt her; but that insistent pressure on
his arm put his free man-nature in revolt. The thought in his mind was
that he did not want any woman running him. Himself a favorite with
women, nevertheless they did not bulk big with him. They were toys,
playthings, part of the relaxation from the bigger game of life. He met
women along with the whiskey and gambling, and from observation he
had found that it was far easier to break away from the drink and the
cards than from a woman once the man was properly entangled.
He was a slave to himself, which was natural in one with a healthy ego,
but he rebelled in ways either murderous or panicky at being a slave to
anybody else. Love's sweet servitude was a thing of which he had no
comprehension. Men he had seen in love impressed him as lunatics,
and lunacy was a thing he had never considered worth analyzing. But
comradeship with men was different from love with women. There was

no servitude in comradeship. It was a business proposition, a square
deal 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