undergone a change. While he, with his slashing buccaneer methods, was
a distinct menace to the more orthodox financial gamblers, he was
nevertheless so grave a menace that they were glad enough to leave him
alone. He had already taught them the excellence of letting a sleeping
dog lie. Many of the men, who knew that they were in danger of his big
bear-paw when it reached out for the honey vats, even made efforts to
placate him, to get on the friendly side of him. The Alta-Pacific
approached him confidentially with an offer of reinstatement, which he
promptly declined. He was after a number of men in that club, and,
whenever opportunity offered, he reached out for them and mangled them.
Even the newspapers, with one or two blackmailing exceptions, ceased
abusing him and became respectful. In short, he was looked upon as a
bald-faced grizzly from the Arctic wilds to whom it was considered
expedient to give the trail. At the time he raided the steamship
companies, they had yapped at him and worried him, the whole pack of
them, only to have him whirl around and whip them in the fiercest
pitched battle San Francisco had ever known. Not easily forgotten was
the Pacific Slope Seaman's strike and the giving over of the municipal
government to the labor bosses and grafters. The destruction of
Charles Klinkner and the California and Altamont Trust Company had been
a warning. But it was an isolated case; they had been confident in
strength in numbers--until he taught them better.

Daylight still engaged in daring speculations, as, for instance, at the
impending outbreak of the Japanese-Russian War, when, in the face of
the experience and power of the shipping gamblers, he reached out and
clutched practically a monopoly of available steamer-charters. There
was scarcely a battered tramp on the Seven Seas that was not his on
time charter. As usual, his position was, "You've got to come and see
me"; which they did, and, to use another of his phrases, they "paid
through the nose" for the privilege. And all his venturing and
fighting had now but one motive. Some day, as he confided to Hegan,
when he'd made a sufficient stake, he was going back to New York and
knock the spots out of Messrs. Dowsett, Letton, and Guggenhammer. He'd
show them what an all-around general buzz-saw he was and what a mistake
they'd made ever to monkey with him. But he never lost his head, and
he knew that he was not yet strong enough to go into