<SPAN name="chap0106"></SPAN>
<h3> CHAPTER VI </h3>
<p>A crowd filled the Tivoli—the old crowd that had seen Daylight depart
two months before; for this was the night of the sixtieth day, and
opinion was divided as ever as to whether or not he would compass the
achievement. At ten o'clock bets were still being made, though the
odds rose, bet by bet, against his success. Down in her heart the
Virgin believed he had failed, yet she made a bet of twenty ounces with
Charley Bates, against forty ounces, that Daylight would arrive before
midnight.</p>
<p>She it was who heard the first yelps of the dogs.</p>
<p>"Listen!" she cried. "It's Daylight!"</p>
<p>There was a general stampede for the door; but where the double
storm-doors were thrown wide open, the crowd fell back. They heard the
eager whining of dogs, the snap of a dog-whip, and the voice of
Daylight crying encouragement as the weary animals capped all they had
done by dragging the sled in over the wooden floor. They came in with
a rush, and with them rushed in the frost, a visible vapor of smoking
white, through which their heads and backs showed, as they strained in
the harness, till they had all the seeming of swimming in a river.
Behind them, at the gee-pole, came Daylight, hidden to the knees by the
swirling frost through which he appeared to wade.</p>
<p>He was the same old Daylight, withal lean and tired-looking, and his
black eyes were sparkling and flashing brighter than ever. His parka of
cotton drill hooded him like a monk, and fell in straight lines to his
knees. Grimed and scorched by camp-smoke and fire, the garment in
itself told the story of his trip. A two-months' beard covered his
face; and the beard, in turn, was matted with the ice of his breathing
through the long seventy-mile run.</p>
<p>His entry was spectacular, melodramatic; and he knew it. It was his
life, and he was living it at the top of his bent. Among his fellows
he was a great man, an Arctic hero. He was proud of the fact, and it
was a high moment for him, fresh from two thousand miles of trail, to
come surging into that bar-room, dogs, sled, mail, Indian,
paraphernalia, and all. He had performed one more exploit that would
make the Yukon ring with his name—he, Burning Daylight, the king of
travelers and dog-mushers.</p>
<p>He experienced a thrill of surprise as the roar of welcome went up and
as every familiar detail of the Tivoli greeted his vision—the long bar
and the array of bottles, the gambling games, the big stove, the
weigher at the gold-scales, the musicians, the men and women, the
Virgin, Celia, and Nellie, Dan MacDonald, Bettles, Billy Rawlins, Olaf
Henderson, Doc Watson,—all of them.</p>
<p>It was just as he had left it, and in all seeming it might well be the
very day he had left. The sixty days of incessant travel through the
white wilderness suddenly telescoped, and had no existence in time.
They were a moment, an incident. He had plunged out and into them
through the wall of silence, and back through the wall of silence he
had plunged, apparently the next instant, and into the roar and turmoil
of the Tivoli.</p>
<p>A glance down at the sled with its canvas mail-bags was necessary to
reassure him of the reality of those sixty days and the two thousand
miles over the ice. As in a dream, he shook the hands that were thrust
out to him. He felt a vast exaltation. Life was magnificent. He
loved it all. A great sense of humanness and comradeship swept over
him. These were all his, his own kind. It was immense, tremendous.
He felt melting in the heart of him, and he would have liked to shake
hands with them all at once, to gather them to his breast in one mighty
embrace.</p>
<p>He drew a deep breath and cried: "The winner pays, and I'm the winner,
ain't I? Surge up, you-all Malemutes and Siwashes, and name your
poison! There's your Dyea mail, straight from Salt Water, and no
hornswogglin about it! Cast the lashings adrift, you-all, and wade
into it!"</p>
<p>A dozen pairs of hands were at the sled-lashings, when the young Le
Barge Indian, bending at the same task, suddenly and limply
straightened up. In his eyes was a great surprise. He stared about
him wildly, for the thing he was undergoing was new to him.</p>
<p>He was profoundly struck by an unguessed limitation. He shook as with
a palsy, and he gave at the knees, slowly sinking down to fall suddenly
across the sled and to know the smashing blow of darkness across his
consciousness.</p>
<p>"Exhaustion," said Daylight. "Take him off and put him to bed, some of
you-all. He's sure a good Indian."</p>
<p>"Daylight's right," was Doc Watson's verdict, a moment later. "The
man's plumb tuckered out."</p>
<p>The mail was taken charge of, the dogs driven away to quarters and fed,
and Bettles struck up the paean of the sassafras root as they lined up
against the long bar to drink and talk and collect their debts.</p>
<p>A few minutes later, Daylight was whirling around the dance-floor,
waltzing with the Virgin. He had replaced his parka with his fur cap
and blanket-cloth coat, kicked off his frozen moccasins, and was
dancing in his stocking feet. After wetting himself to the knees late
that afternoon, he had run on without changing his foot-gear, and to
the knees his long German socks were matted with ice. In the warmth of
the room it began to thaw and to break apart in clinging chunks. These
chunks rattled together as his legs flew around, and every little while
they fell clattering to the floor and were slipped upon by the other
dancers. But everybody forgave Daylight. He, who was one of the few
that made the Law in that far land, who set the ethical pace, and by
conduct gave the standard of right and wrong, was nevertheless above
the Law. He was one of those rare and favored mortals who can do no
wrong. What he did had to be right, whether others were permitted or
not to do the same things. Of course, such mortals are so favored by
virtue of the fact that they almost always do the right and do it in
finer and higher ways than other men. So Daylight, an elder hero in
that young land and at the same time younger than most of them, moved
as a creature apart, as a man above men, as a man who was greatly man
and all man. And small wonder it was that the Virgin yielded herself
to his arms, as they danced dance after dance, and was sick at heart at
the knowledge that he found nothing in her more than a good friend and
an excellent dancer. Small consolation it was to know that he had
never loved any woman. She was sick with love of him, and he danced
with her as he would dance with any woman, as he would dance with a man
who was a good dancer and upon whose arm was tied a handkerchief to
conventionalize him into a woman.</p>
<p>One such man Daylight danced with that night. Among frontiersmen it
has always been a test of endurance for one man to whirl another down;
and when Ben Davis, the faro-dealer, a gaudy bandanna on his arm, got
Daylight in a Virginia reel, the fun began. The reel broke up and all
fell back to watch. Around and around the two men whirled, always in
the one direction. Word was passed on into the big bar-room, and bar
and gambling tables were deserted. Everybody wanted to see, and they
packed and jammed the dance-room. The musicians played on and on, and
on and on the two men whirled. Davis was skilled at the trick, and on
the Yukon he had put many a strong man on his back. But after a few
minutes it was clear that he, and not Daylight, was going.</p>
<p>For a while longer they spun around, and then Daylight suddenly stood
still, released his partner, and stepped back, reeling himself, and
fluttering his hands aimlessly, as if to support himself against the
air. But Davis, a giddy smile of consternation on his face, gave
sideways, turned in an attempt to recover balance, and pitched headlong
to the floor. Still reeling and staggering and clutching at the air
with his hands, Daylight caught the nearest girl and started on in a
waltz. Again he had done the big thing. Weary from two thousand miles
over the ice and a run that day of seventy miles, he had whirled a
fresh man down, and that man Ben Davis.</p>
<p>Daylight loved the high places, and though few high places there were
in his narrow experience, he had made a point of sitting in the highest
he had ever glimpsed. The great world had never heard his name, but it
was known far and wide in the vast silent North, by whites and Indians
and Eskimos, from Bering Sea to the Passes, from the head reaches of
remotest rivers to the tundra shore of Point Barrow. Desire for
mastery was strong in him, and it was all one whether wrestling with
the elements themselves, with men, or with luck in a gambling game. It
was all a game, life and its affairs. And he was a gambler to the
core. Risk and chance were meat and drink. True, it was not
altogether blind, for he applied wit and skill and strength; but behind
it all was the everlasting Luck, the thing that at times turned on its
votaries and crushed the wise while it blessed the fools—Luck, the
thing all men sought and dreamed to conquer. And so he. Deep in his
life-processes Life itself sang the siren song of its own majesty, ever
a-whisper and urgent, counseling him that he could achieve more than
other men, win out where they failed, ride to success where they
perished. It was the urge of Life healthy and strong, unaware of
frailty and decay, drunken with sublime complacence, ego-mad, enchanted
by its own mighty optimism.</p>
<p>And ever in vaguest whisperings and clearest trumpet-calls came the
message that sometime, somewhere, somehow, he would run Luck down, make
himself the master of Luck, and tie it and brand it as his own. When
he played poker, the whisper was of four aces and royal flushes. When
he prospected, it was of gold in the grass-roots, gold on bed-rock, and
gold all the way down. At the sharpest hazards of trail and river and
famine, the message was that other men might die, but that he would
pull through triumphant. It was the old, old lie of Life fooling
itself, believing itself—immortal and indestructible, bound to achieve
over other lives and win to its heart's desire.</p>
<p>And so, reversing at times, Daylight waltzed off his dizziness and led
the way to the bar. But a united protest went up. His theory that the
winner paid was no longer to be tolerated. It was contrary to custom
and common sense, and while it emphasized good-fellowship,
nevertheless, in the name of good-fellowship it must cease. The drinks
were rightfully on Ben Davis, and Ben Davis must buy them.
Furthermore, all drinks and general treats that Daylight was guilty of
ought to be paid by the house, for Daylight brought much custom to it
whenever he made a night. Bettles was the spokesman, and his argument,
tersely and offensively vernacular, was unanimously applauded.</p>
<p>Daylight grinned, stepped aside to the roulette-table, and bought a
stack of yellow chips. At the end of ten minutes he weighed in at the
scales, and two thousand dollars in gold-dust was poured into his own
and an extra sack. Luck, a mere flutter of luck, but it was his.
Elation was added to elation. He was living, and the night was his.
He turned upon his well-wishing critics.</p>
<p>"Now the winner sure does pay," he said.</p>
<p>And they surrendered. There was no withstanding Daylight when he
vaulted on the back of life, and rode it bitted and spurred.</p>
<p>At one in the morning he saw Elijah Davis herding Henry Finn and Joe
Hines, the lumber-jack, toward the door. Daylight interfered.</p>
<p>"Where are you-all going?" he demanded, attempting to draw them to the
bar.</p>
<p>"Bed," Elijah Davis answered.</p>
<p>He was a lean tobacco-chewing New Englander, the one daring spirit in
his family that had heard and answered the call of the West shouting
through the Mount Desert back odd-lots. "Got to," Joe Hines added
apologetically. "We're mushing out in the mornin'."</p>
<p>Daylight still detained them. "Where to? What's the excitement?"</p>
<p>"No excitement," Elijah explained. "We're just a-goin' to play your
hunch, an' tackle the Upper Country. Don't you want to come along?"</p>
<p>"I sure do," Daylight affirmed.</p>
<p>But the question had been put in fun, and Elijah ignored the acceptance.</p>
<p>"We're tacklin' the Stewart," he went on. "Al Mayo told me he seen
some likely lookin' bars first time he come down the Stewart, and we're
goin' to sample 'em while the river's froze. You listen, Daylight, an'
mark my words, the time's comin' when winter diggin's'll be all the go.
There'll be men in them days that'll laugh at our summer stratchin' an'
ground-wallerin'."</p>
<p>At that time, winter mining was undreamed of on the Yukon. From the
moss and grass the land was frozen to bed-rock, and frozen gravel, hard
as granite, defied pick and shovel. In the summer the men stripped the
earth down as fast as the sun thawed it. Then was the time they did
their mining. During the winter they freighted their provisions, went
moose-hunting, got all ready for the summer's work, and then loafed the
bleak, dark months through in the big central camps such as Circle City
and Forty Mile.</p>
<p>"Winter diggin's sure comin'," Daylight agreed. "Wait till that big
strike is made up river. Then you-all'll see a new kind of mining.
What's to prevent wood-burning and sinking shafts and drifting along
bed-rock? Won't need to timber. That frozen muck and gravel'll stand
till hell is froze and its mill-tails is turned to ice-cream. Why,
they'll be working pay-streaks a hundred feet deep in them days that's
comin'. I'm sure going along with you-all, Elijah."</p>
<p>Elijah laughed, gathered his two partners up, and was making a second
attempt to reach the door.</p>
<p>"Hold on," Daylight called. "I sure mean it."</p>
<p>The three men turned back suddenly upon him, in their faces surprise,
delight, and incredulity.</p>
<p>"G'wan, you're foolin'," said Finn, the other lumberjack, a quiet,
steady, Wisconsin man.</p>
<p>"There's my dawgs and sled," Daylight answered. "That'll make two
teams and halve the loads—though we-all'll have to travel easy for a
spell, for them dawgs is sure tired."</p>
<p>The three men were overjoyed, but still a trifle incredulous.</p>
<p>"Now look here," Joe Hines blurted out, "none of your foolin, Daylight.
We mean business. Will you come?"</p>
<p>Daylight extended his hand and shook.</p>
<p>"Then you'd best be gettin' to bed," Elijah advised. "We're mushin' out
at six, and four hours' sleep is none so long."</p>
<p>"Mebbe we ought to lay over a day and let him rest up," Finn suggested.</p>
<p>Daylight's pride was touched.</p>
<p>"No you don't," he cried. "We all start at six. What time do you-all
want to be called? Five? All right, I'll rouse you-all out."</p>
<p>"You oughter have some sleep," Elijah counselled gravely. "You can't
go on forever."</p>
<p>Daylight was tired, profoundly tired. Even his iron body acknowledged
weariness. Every muscle was clamoring for bed and rest, was appalled
at continuance of exertion and at thought of the trail again. All this
physical protest welled up into his brain in a wave of revolt. But
deeper down, scornful and defiant, was Life itself, the essential fire
of it, whispering that all Daylight's fellows were looking on, that now
was the time to pile deed upon deed, to flaunt his strength in the face
of strength. It was merely Life, whispering its ancient lies. And in
league with it was whiskey, with all its consummate effrontery and
vain-glory.</p>
<p>"Mebbe you-all think I ain't weaned yet?" Daylight demanded. "Why, I
ain't had a drink, or a dance, or seen a soul in two months. You-all
get to bed. I'll call you-all at five."</p>
<p>And for the rest of the night he danced on in his stocking feet, and at
five in the morning, rapping thunderously on the door of his new
partners' cabin, he could be heard singing the song that had given him
his name:—</p>
<p>"Burning daylight, you-all Stewart River hunchers! Burning daylight!
Burning daylight! Burning daylight!"</p>
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