Daylight picked the ace from his hand and tossed it
over alongside MacDonald’s ace, saying:—
“That’s what cheered me along, Mac.
I knowed it was only kings that could beat me, and
he had them.
“What did you-all have?” he asked, all
interest, turning to Campbell.
“Straight flush of four, open at both ends—a
good drawing hand.”
“You bet! You could a’ made a straight,
a straight flush, or a flush out of it.”
“That’s what I thought,” Campbell
said sadly. “It cost me six thousand before
I quit.”
“I wisht you-all’d drawn,” Daylight
laughed. “Then I wouldn’t a’
caught that fourth queen. Now I’ve got
to take Billy Rawlins’ mail contract and mush
for Dyea. What’s the size of the killing,
Jack?”
Kearns attempted to count the pot, but was too excited.
Daylight drew it across to him, with firm fingers
separating and stacking the markers and I.O.U.’s
and with clear brain adding the sum.
“One hundred and twenty-seven thousand,”
he announced. “You-all can sell out now,
Jack, and head for home.”
The winner smiled and nodded, but seemed incapable
of speech.
“I’d shout the drinks,” MacDonald
said, “only the house don’t belong to
me any more.”
“Yes, it does,” Kearns replied, first
wetting his lips with his tongue. “Your
note’s good for any length of time. But
the drinks are on me.”
“Name your snake-juice, you-all—the
winner pays!” Daylight called out loudly to
all about him, at the same time rising from his chair
and catching the Virgin by the arm. “Come
on for a reel, you-all dancers. The night’s
young yet, and it’s Helen Breakfast and the
mail contract for me in the morning. Here, you-all
Rawlins, you—I hereby do take over that
same contract, and I start for salt water at nine
A.M.—savvee? Come on, you-all!
Where’s that fiddler?”
It was Daylight’s night. He was the centre
and the head of the revel, unquenchably joyous, a
contagion of fun. He multiplied himself, and
in so doing multiplied the excitement. No prank
he suggested was too wild for his followers, and all
followed save those that developed into singing imbeciles
and fell warbling by the wayside. Yet never
did trouble intrude. It was known on the Yukon
that when Burning Daylight made a night of it, wrath
and evil were forbidden. On his nights men dared
not quarrel. In the younger days such things
had happened, and then men had known what real wrath
was, and been man-handled as only Burning Daylight
could man-handle. On his nights men must laugh
and be happy or go home. Daylight was inexhaustible.
In between dances he paid over to Kearns the twenty
thousand in dust and transferred to him his Moosehide
claim. Likewise he arranged the taking over
of Billy Rawlins’ mail contract, and made his
preparations for the start. He despatched a messenger
