e
such commandments. They certainly stole and were honored by their
fellows according to the magnitude of their stealings.

The more Daylight played the game, the clearer the situation grew.
Despite the fact that every robber was keen to rob every other robber,
the band was well organized. It practically controlled the political
machinery of society, from the ward politician up to the Senate of the
United States. It passed laws that gave it privilege to rob. It
enforced these laws by means of the police, the marshals, the militia
and regular army, and the courts. And it was a snap. A superman's
chiefest danger was his fellow-superman. The great stupid mass of the
people did not count. They were constituted of such inferior clay that
the veriest chicanery fooled them. The superman manipulated the
strings, and when robbery of the workers became too slow or monotonous,
they turned loose and robbed one another.

Daylight was philosophical, but not a philosopher. He had never read
the books. He was a hard-headed, practical man, and farthest from him
was any intention of ever reading the books. He had lived life in the
simple, where books were not necessary for an understanding of life,
and now life in the complex appeared just as simple. He saw through
its frauds and fictions, and found it as elemental as on the Yukon.
Men were made of the same stuff. They had the same passions and
desires. Finance was poker on a larger scale. The men who played were
the men who had stakes. The workers were the fellows toiling for
grubstakes. He saw the game played out according to the everlasting
rules, and he played a hand himself. The gigantic futility of humanity
organized and befuddled by the bandits did not shock him. It was the
natural order. Practically all human endeavors were futile. He had
seen so much of it. His partners had starved and died on the Stewart.
Hundreds of old-timers had failed to locate on Bonanza and Eldorado,
while Swedes and chechaquos had come in on the moose-pasture and
blindly staked millions. It was life, and life was a savage
proposition at best. Men in civilization robbed because they were so
made. They robbed just as cats scratched, famine pinched, and frost
bit.

So it was that Daylight became a successful financier. He did not go
in for swindling the workers. Not only did he not have the heart for
it, but it did not strike him as a sporting proposition. The workers
were so