Burning Daylight Author:Jack London Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VI A Crowd filled the Tivoli — the old crowd that had seen Daylight depart two months before; for this was the night of the sixtieth day, and opinion ... more »was divided as ever as to whether or not he would compass the achievement. At ten o'clock bets were still being made, though the odds rose, bet by bet, against his success. Down in her heart the Virgin believed he had failed, yet she made a bet of twenty ounces with Charley Bates, against forty ounces, that Daylight would arrive before midnight. She it was who heard the first yelps of the dogs. "Listen!" she cried. "It's Daylight!" There was a general stampede for the door; but when the double storm-doors were thrown wide open, the crowd fell back. They heard the eager whining of dogs, the snap of a dog-whip, and the voice of Daylight crying encouragement as the weary animals capped all they had done by dragging the sled in over the wooden floor. They came in with a rush, and with them rushed in the frost, a visible vapor of smoking white, through which their heads and backs showed, as they strained in the harness, till they had all the seeming of swimming in a river. Behind them, at the gee-pole, came Daylight, hidden to the knees by the swirling frost through which he appeared to wade. He was the same old Daylight, withal lean and tired- looking, and his black eyes were sparkling and flashing brighter than ever. His parka of cotton drill hooded him like a monk, and fell in straight lines to his knees. Grimed and scorched by camp-smoke and fire, the garment in itself told the story of his trip. A two-months' beard coveredhis face; and the beard, in turn, was matted with the ice of his breathing through the long seventy-mile run. His entry was spectacular, melodramatic; and he knew it. It was his life, and h...« less