Next morning, at break of day, Dawson said good-by.
The thousands that lined the bank wore mittens and
their ear-flaps pulled down and tied. It was
thirty below zero, the rim-ice was thickening, and
the Yukon carried a run of mush-ice. From the
deck of the Seattle, Daylight waved and called his
farewells. As the lines were cast off and the
steamer swung out into the current, those near him
saw the moisture well up in Daylight’s eyes.
In a way, it was to him departure from his native
land, this grim Arctic region which was practically
the only land he had known. He tore off his
cap and waved it.
“Good-by, you-all!” he called. “Good-by,
you-all!”
In no blaze of glory did Burning Daylight descend
upon San Francisco. Not only had he been forgotten,
but the Klondike along with him. The world was
interested in other things, and the Alaskan adventure,
like the Spanish War, was an old story. Many
things had happened since then. Exciting things
were happening every day, and the sensation-space
of newspapers was limited. The effect of being
ignored, however, was an exhilaration. Big man
as he had been in the Arctic game, it merely showed
how much bigger was this new game, when a man worth
eleven millions, and with a history such as his, passed
unnoticed.
He settled down in St. Francis Hotel, was interviewed
by the cub-reporters on the hotel-run, and received
brief paragraphs of notice for twenty-four hours.
He grinned to himself, and began to look around and
get acquainted with the new order of beings and things.
He was very awkward and very self-possessed.
In addition to the stiffening afforded his backbone
by the conscious ownership of eleven millions, he
possessed an enormous certitude.
Nothing abashed him, nor was he appalled by the display
and culture and power around him. It was another
kind of wilderness, that was all; and it was for him
to learn the ways of it, the signs and trails and
water-holes where good hunting lay, and the bad stretches
of field and flood to be avoided. As usual, he
fought shy of the women. He was still too badly
scared to come to close quarters with the dazzling
and resplendent creatures his own millions made accessible.
They looked and longed, but he so concealed his timidity
that he had all the seeming of moving boldly among
them. Nor was it his wealth alone that attracted
them. He was too much a man, and too much an
unusual type of man. Young yet, barely thirty-six,
eminently handsome, magnificently strong, almost bursting
with a splendid virility, his free trail-stride, never
learned on pavements, and his black eyes, hinting
of great spaces and unwearied with the close perspective
of the city dwellers, drew many a curious and wayward
feminine glance. He saw, grinned knowingly to
himself, and faced them as so many dangers, with a
cool demeanor that was a far greater personal achievement
than had they been famine, frost, or flood.
