interfered. "Only one sack more."

"Two!" some one cried. "Two was the bet."

"They didn't lift that last sack," Kearns protested.

"They only lifted seven hundred and fifty."

But Daylight grandly brushed aside the confusion.

"What's the good of you-all botherin' around that way? What's one more
sack? If I can't lift three more, I sure can't lift two. Put 'em in."

He stood upon the chairs, squatted, and bent his shoulders down till
his hands closed on the rope. He shifted his feet slightly, tautened
his muscles with a tentative pull, then relaxed again, questing for a
perfect adjustment of all the levers of his body.

French Louis, looking on sceptically, cried out,

"Pool lak hell, Daylight! Pool lak hell!"

Daylight's muscles tautened a second time, and this time in earnest,
until steadily all the energy of his splendid body was applied, and
quite imperceptibly, without jerk or strain, the bulky nine hundred
pounds rose from the door and swung back and forth, pendulum like,
between his legs.

Olaf Henderson sighed a vast audible sigh. The Virgin, who had tensed
unconsciously till her muscles hurt her, relaxed. While French Louis
murmured reverently:--

"M'sieu Daylight, salut! Ay am one beeg baby. You are one beeg man."

Daylight dropped his burden, leaped to the floor, and headed for the
bar.

"Weigh in!" he cried, tossing his sack to the weigher, who transferred
to it four hundred dollars from the sacks of the two losers.

"Surge up, everybody!" Daylight went on. "Name your snake-juice! The
winner pays!"

"This is my night!" he was shouting, ten minutes later. "I'm the lone
he-wolf, and I've seen thirty winters. This is my birthday, my one day
in the year, and I can put any man on his back. Come on, you-all! I'm
going to put you-all in the snow. Come on, you chechaquos [1] and
sourdoughs[2], and get your baptism!"

The rout streamed out of doors, all save the barkeepers and the singing
Bacchuses. Some fleeting thought of saving his own dignity entered
MacDonald's head, for he approached Daylight with outstretched hand.

"What? You first?" Daylight laughed, clasping the other's hand as if
in greeting.

"No, no," the other hurriedly disclaimed. "Just congratulations on
your birthday. Of course you can put me in the snow. What chance have
I against a man that lifts nine hundred pounds?"

MacDonald weighed one hundred and eighty pounds, and Daylight had him
gripped solely