“Hold on,” Daylight called. “I
sure mean it.”
The three men turned back suddenly upon him, in their
faces surprise, delight, and incredulity.
“G’wan, you’re foolin’,”
said Finn, the other lumberjack, a quiet, steady,
Wisconsin man.
“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.”
The three men were overjoyed, but still a trifle incredulous.
“Now look here,” Joe Hines blurted out,
“none of your foolin, Daylight. We mean
business. Will you come?”
Daylight extended his hand and shook.
“Then you’d best be gettin’ to bed,”
Elijah advised. “We’re mushin’
out at six, and four hours’ sleep is none so
long.”
“Mebbe we ought to lay over a day and let him
rest up,” Finn suggested.
Daylight’s pride was touched.
“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.”
“You oughter have some sleep,” Elijah
counselled gravely. “You can’t go
on forever.”
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.
“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.”
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:—
“Burning daylight, you-all Stewart River hunchers!
Burning daylight! Burning daylight! Burning
daylight!”
This time the trail was easier. It was better
packed, and they were not carrying mail against time.
The day’s run was shorter, and likewise the
hours on trail. On his mail run Daylight had
played out three Indians; but his present partners
knew that they must not be played out when they arrived
at the Stewart bars, so they set the slower pace.
And under this milder toil, where his companions
nevertheless grew weary, Daylight recuperated and
rested up. At Forty Mile they laid over two days
for the sake of the dogs, and at Sixty Mile Daylight’s
team was left with the trader. Unlike Daylight,
after the terrible run from Selkirk to Circle City,
they had been unable to recuperate on the back trail.
So the four men pulled on from Sixty Mile with a fresh
team of dogs on Daylight’s sled.
