“Just look me in the eye, and you-all’ll
savvee I mean business. Them stubs and receipts
on the table is all yourn. Good day.”
As the door shut behind him, Nathaniel Letton sprang
for the telephone, and Dowsett intercepted him.
“What are you going to do?” Dowsett demanded.
“The police. It’s downright robbery.
I won’t stand it. I tell you I won’t
stand it.”
Dowsett smiled grimly, but at the same time bore the
slender financier back and down into his chair.
“We’ll talk it over,” he said; and
in Leon Guggenhammer he found an anxious ally.
And nothing ever came of it. The thing remained
a secret with the three men. Nor did Daylight
ever give the secret away, though that afternoon,
leaning back in his stateroom on the Twentieth Century,
his shoes off, and feet on a chair, he chuckled long
and heartily. New York remained forever puzzled
over the affair; nor could it hit upon a rational explanation.
By all rights, Burning Daylight should have gone broke,
yet it was known that he immediately reappeared in
San Francisco possessing an apparently unimpaired
capital. This was evidenced by the magnitude
of the enterprises he engaged in, such as, for instance,
Panama Mail, by sheer weight of money and fighting
power wresting the control away from Shiftily and selling
out in two months to the Harriman interests at a rumored
enormous advance.
Back in San Francisco, Daylight quickly added to his
reputation In ways it was not an enviable reputation.
Men were afraid of him. He became known as
a fighter, a fiend, a tiger. His play was a
ripping and smashing one, and no one knew where or
how his next blow would fall. The element of
surprise was large. He balked on the unexpected,
and, fresh from the wild North, his mind not operating
in stereotyped channels, he was able in unusual degree
to devise new tricks and stratagems. And once
he won the advantage, he pressed it remorselessly.
“As relentless as a Red Indian,” was
said of him, and it was said truly.
On the other hand, he was known as “square.”
His word was as good as his bond, and this despite
the fact that he accepted nobody’s word.
He always shied at propositions based on gentlemen’s
agreements, and a man who ventured his honor as a
gentleman, in dealing with Daylight, inevitably was
treated to an unpleasant time. Daylight never
gave his own word unless he held the whip-hand.
It was a case with the other fellow taking it or
nothing.
Legitimate investment had no place in Daylight’s
play. It tied up his money, and reduced the
element of risk. It was the gambling side of
business that fascinated him, and to play in his slashing
manner required that his money must be ready to hand.
It was never tied up save for short intervals, for
he was principally engaged in turning it over and
over, raiding here, there, and everywhere, a veritable
