is burg.

"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.

CHAPTER V

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 i