and
good-naturedly sensational about him, but now he was to learn what
virulent scrupulousness an antagonized press was capable of. Every
episode of his life was resurrected to serve as foundations for
malicious fabrications. Daylight was frankly amazed at the new
interpretation put upon all he had accomplished and the deeds he had
done. From an Alaskan hero he was metamorphosed into an Alaskan bully,
liar, desperado, and all around "bad Man." Not content with this, lies
upon lies, out of whole cloth, were manufactured about him. He never
replied, though once he went to the extent of disburdening his mind to
half a dozen reporters. "Do your damnedest," he told them. "Burning
Daylight's bucked bigger things than your dirty, lying sheets. And I
don't blame you, boys... that is, not much. You can't help it. You've
got to live. There's a mighty lot of women in this world that make
their living in similar fashion to yours, because they're not able to
do anything better. Somebody's got to do the dirty work, and it might
as well be you. You're paid for it, and you ain't got the backbone to
rustle cleaner jobs."

The socialist press of the city jubilantly exploited this utterance,
scattering it broadcast over San Francisco in tens of thousands of
paper dodgers. And the journalists, stung to the quick, retaliated
with the only means in their power-printer's ink abuse. The attack
became bitterer than ever. The whole affair sank to the deeper deeps
of rancor and savageness. The poor woman who had killed herself was
dragged out of her grave and paraded on thousands of reams of paper as
a martyr and a victim to Daylight's ferocious brutality. Staid,
statistical articles were published, proving that he had made his start
by robbing poor miners of their claims, and that the capstone to his
fortune had been put in place by his treacherous violation of faith
with the Guggenhammers in the deal on Ophir. And there were editorials
written in which he was called an enemy of society, possessed of the
manners and culture of a caveman, a fomenter of wasteful business
troubles, the destroyer of the city's prosperity in commerce and trade,
an anarchist of dire menace; and one editorial gravely recommended that
hanging would be a lesson to him and his ilk, and concluded with the
fervent hope that some day his big motor-car would smash up and smash
him with it.

He was like a big bear raiding a bee-hive and, regardless of the
sti