The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1910-09-05

shivered. minute later she whirled away In
his arms to the dancing floor where along with the
other three women and their partners rollicking
Virginia reel soon IN progress. Men and women
danced in moccasins, and the place soon a-roar
Burning Daylight the centre OF 1t and the animatins
spark with quip and jest and rough merrment rous-
ing them out Of the slough Of despond in which he
had found them.
The atmosphere Of the place changed with his com
ing He seemed to Ill It with his tremendous vitality
Men who entered from the street felt Immediately,
and response their queries the barkeepers nodded
at the back room and said omprehensively:-"Burn-
ing Daylight's on the tear" And the men who en-
tered remained and kept the barkeepers busy. The
gamblers took heart Of life and the tables
filed the click Of chips and whir of the roulette ball
rising monotonousy and mperously above the hoarse
rumble Of mems voices and their oaths and heavy
laughs.
Few men knew Elan Harnish by any other name
than Burning Daylight the which had been given
him in the early days in the land because Of his habit
of routing his comrades out Of their blankets with the
complaint that daylight burning. OF the pioneers
in that far Arctic wilderness where all men were
pioneers he was reckoned among the Oldest Men Ike
Jack Mayo and Jack McQuestion antedated him, but
they had entered the land by crossing the Rockies
from the Hudson Bay country to the east He. how
ever, had been the pioneer the ChcOot and Chill
passes In the spring of 1893 twelve years before
stripping Of eighteen, be had crossed over the Chill
coOt with five comrades. In the fall he had crossed
back with -Four had persisted by mischance In
the bleak, uncharted vastness And for twelve years
ELAN Harnish had continued to grope for gold among
the shadows Of the Circle
And had CROPPED so obstinately or so en-
duringy. He had grown up with the land He knew
vii Tatic
previous life. Camps like Forty Mile and Circle City
were 10 him netropolises. And not alone had be
grown up with the land for raw 1t he had
helped TO make it He had made history and geog-
raphy, and those that followed Of his traverses
and charted the trails his feet had broken
Heroes are seldom given to hero worship, but among
those Of that young land young he was, he was
accounted an elder hero In point of time he be
fore them In point of deed he was beyond them. In
point OF endurance was acknowledged that could
kin the hardest Of them. Furthermore he was &C
counted nervy man, a square man and white
man.
In all lands where life is a hazard lightly played
with and lightly flung aside men turn, almost auto
maticslly, TO gambling for diversion and relaxation
In the Yukon gambled their lives for gold and
those who won gold from the ground gambed for 1t
with one another. Nor was Elan Harnish an excep-
uOh. he was mars man primarily, and the instinct
in him TO play the game Of life was strong Environ
ment had determined what form that game should
tnke- Born on Iowa farm his father had eIgrated
to Eastern Oregon In which mining country Elam's
boyhOod had been lived, BE had kDAwn nothing but
LSrd knocks for big stakes Pluck and endurance
counted in the game and the great god Chance dealt
the cards Honest work for sure but meagre returns
did not count man played big. he risked every
thing for everything and ANYTHING less fpan evarv
thing meant that be a loser. So, for twelve
Yukon years, Elan Harnish had been a loser True