een a strenuous three days, for his smash had been
the biggest the panic had precipitated in California. The papers had
been filled with it, and a great cry of indignation had gone up from
the very men who later found that Daylight had fully protected their
interests. It was these facts, coming slowly to light, that gave rise
to the widely repeated charge that Daylight had gone insane. It was
the unanimous conviction among business men that no sane man could
possibly behave in such fashion. On the other hand, neither his
prolonged steady drinking nor his affair with Dede became public, so
the only conclusion attainable was that the wild financier from Alaska
had gone lunatic. And Daylight had grinned and confirmed the suspicion
by refusing to see the reporters.

He halted the automobile before Dede's door, and met her with his same
rushing tactics, enclosing her in his arms before a word could be
uttered. Not until afterward, when she had recovered herself from him
and got him seated, did he begin to speak.

"I've done it," he announced. "You've seen the newspapers, of course.
I'm plumb cleaned out, and I've just called around to find out what day
you feel like starting for Glen Ellen. It'll have to be soon, for it's
real expensive living in Oakland these days. My board at the hotel is
only paid to the end of the week, and I can't afford to stay after
that. And beginning with to-morrow I've got to use the street cars,
and they sure eat up the nickels."

He paused, and waited, and looked at her. Indecision and trouble
showed on her face. Then the smile he knew so well began to grow on
her lips and in her eyes, until she threw back her head and laughed in
the old forthright boyish way.

"When are those men coming to pack for me?" she asked.

And again she laughed and simulated a vain attempt to escape his
bearlike arms.

"Dear Elam," she whispered; "dear Elam." And of herself, for the first
time, she kissed him.

She ran her hand caressingly through his hair.

"Your eyes are all gold right now," he said. "I can look in them and
tell just how much you love me."

"They have been all gold for you, Elam, for a long time. I think, on
our little ranch, they will always be all gold."

"Your hair has gold in it, too, a sort of fiery gold." He turned her
face suddenly and held it between his hands and looked long into her
eyes. "And your eyes were full of gold only the other day, when you
said you wou