f in another. Daylight, with still in the forefront of his
consciousness all that had occurred in the preceding hour, was deeply
impressed by the scene at the moment of departure. The three machines
stood like weird night monsters at the gravelled foot of the wide
stairway under the unlighted porte-cochere. It was a dark night, and
the lights of the motor-cars cut as sharply through the blackness as
knives would cut through solid substance. The obsequious lackey--the
automatic genie of the house which belonged to none of the three
men,--stood like a graven statue after having helped them in. The
fur-coated chauffeurs bulked dimly in their seats. One after the
other, like spurred steeds, the cars leaped into the blackness, took
the curve of the driveway, and were gone.

Daylight's car was the last, and, peering out, he caught a glimpse of
the unlighted house that loomed hugely through the darkness like a
mountain. Whose was it? he wondered. How came they to use it for
their secret conference? Would the lackey talk? How about the
chauffeurs? Were they trusted men like "our" Mr. Howison? Mystery?
The affair was alive with it. And hand in hand with mystery walked
Power. He leaned back and inhaled his cigarette. Big things were
afoot. The cards were shuffled even the for a mighty deal, and he was
in on it. He remembered back to his poker games with Jack Kearns, and
laughed aloud. He had played for thousands in those days on the turn
of a card; but now he was playing for millions. And on the eighteenth,
when that dividend was declared, he chuckled at the confusion that
would inevitably descend upon the men with the sharpened shears waiting
to trim him--him, Burning Daylight.

CHAPTER III

Back at his hotel, though nearly two in the morning, he found the
reporters waiting to interview him. Next morning there were more. And
thus, with blare of paper trumpet, was he received by New York. Once
more, with beating of toms-toms and wild hullaballoo, his picturesque
figure strode across the printed sheet. The King of the Klondike, the
hero of the Arctic, the thirty-million-dollar millionaire of the North,
had come to New York. What had he come for? To trim the New Yorkers
as he had trimmed the Tonopah crowd in Nevada? Wall Street had best
watch out, for the wild man of Klondike had just come to town. Or,
perchance, would Wall Street trim him? Wall Street had trimmed many
wild men; would this be Burn