monotonous, they turned loose and robbed one another.

Daylight was philosophical, but not a philosopher. He had never
read the books. He was a hard-headed, practical man, and
farthest from him was any intention of ever reading the books.
He had lived life in the simple, where books were not necessary
for an understanding of life, and now life in the complex
appeared just as simple. He saw through its frauds and fictions,
and found it as elemental as on the Yukon. Men were made of the
same stuff. They had the same passions and desires. Finance was
poker on a larger scale. The men who played were the men who had
stakes. The workers were the fellows toiling for grubstakes. He
saw the game played out according to the everlasting rules, and
he played a hand himself. The gigantic futility of humanity
organized and befuddled by the bandits did not shock him. It was
the natural order. Practically all human endeavors were futile.
He had seen so much of it. His partners had starved and died on
the Stewart. Hundreds of old-timers had failed to locate on
Bonanza and Eldorado, while Swedes and chechaquos had come in
on the moose-pasture and blindly staked millions. It was life,
and life was a savage proposition at best. Men in civilization
robbed because they were so made. They robbed just as cats
scratched, famine pinched, and frost bit.

So it was that Daylight became a successful financier. He did not
go in for swindling the workers. Not only did he not have the
heart for it, but it did not strike him as a sporting
proposition. The workers were so easy, so stupid. It was more
like slaughtering fat hand-reared pheasants on the English
preserves he had heard about. The sport to him, was in waylaying