great thing when he's learned to pick grapes
a whole long day and come home at the end of it with that tired happy
feeling, instead of being in a state of physical collapse. That
fireplace--those big stones--I was soft, then, a little, anemic,
alcoholic degenerate, with the spunk of a rabbit and about one per cent
as much stamina, and some of those big stones nearly broke my back and
my heart. But I persevered, and used my body in the way Nature
intended it should be used--not bending over a desk and swilling
whiskey... and, well, here I am, a better man for it, and there's the
fireplace, fine and dandy, eh?

"And now tell me about the Klondike, and how you turned San Francisco
upside down with that last raid of yours. You're a bonny fighter, you
know, and you touch my imagination, though my cooler reason tells me
that you are a lunatic like the rest. The lust for power! It's a
dreadful affliction. Why didn't you stay in your Klondike? Or why
don't you clear out and live a natural life, for instance, like mine?
You see, I can ask questions, too. Now you talk and let me listen for
a while."

It was not until ten o'clock that Daylight parted from Ferguson. As he
rode along through the starlight, the idea came to him of buying the
ranch on the other side of the valley. There was no thought in his
mind of ever intending to live on it. His game was in San Francisco.
But he liked the ranch, and as soon as he got back to the office he
would open up negotiations with Hillard. Besides, the ranch included
the clay-pit, and it would give him the whip-hand over Holdsworthy if
he ever tried to cut up any didoes.

CHAPTER X

The time passed, and Daylight played on at the game. But the game had
entered upon a new phase. The lust for power in the mere gambling and
winning was metamorphosing into the lust for power in order to revenge.
There were many men in San Francisco against whom he had registered
black marks, and now and again, with one of his lightning strokes, he
erased such a mark. He asked no quarter; he gave no quarter. Men
feared and hated him, and no one loved him, except Larry Hegan, his
lawyer, who would have laid down his life for him. But he was the only
man with whom Daylight was really intimate, though he was on terms of
friendliest camaraderie with the rough and unprincipled following of
the bosses who ruled the Riverside Club.

On the other hand, San Francisco's attitude toward Daylight had