Business never kept me awake nights.
"You've left me no argument.
I know I'm not the same man that came from Alaska.
I couldn't hit the trail with the dogs as I did in them days.
I'm soft in my muscles, and my mind's gone hard.
I used to respect men.
I despise them now.
You see, I spent all my life in the open, and I reckon I'm an open-air man.
Why, I've got the prettiest little ranch you ever laid eyes on, up in Glen Ellen.
That's where I got stuck for that brick-yard.
You recollect handling the correspondence.
I only laid eyes on the ranch that one time, and I so fell in love with it that I bought it there and then.
I just rode around the hills, and was happy as a kid out of school.
I'd be a better man living in the country.
The city doesn't make me better. You're plumb right there.
I know it.
But suppose your prayer should be answered and I'd go clean broke and have to work for day's wages?"
She did not answer, though all the body of her seemed to urge consent.
"Suppose I had nothing left but that little ranch, and was satisfied to grow a few chickens and scratch a living somehow—would you marry me then, Dede?"
"Why, we'd be together all the time!" she cried.
"But I'd have to be out ploughing once in a while," he warned, "or driving to town to get the grub."
"But there wouldn't be the office, at any rate, and no man to see, and men to see without end. But it is all foolish and impossible, and we'll have to be starting back now if we're to escape the rain."
Then was the moment, among the trees, where they began the descent of the hill, that Daylight might have drawn her closely to him and kissed her once.
But he was too perplexed with the new thoughts she had put into his head to take advantage of the situation.
He merely caught her by the arm and helped her over the rougher footing.
"It's darn pretty country up there at Glen Ellen," he said meditatively.
"I wish you could see it."
At the edge of the grove he suggested that it might be better for them to part there.
"It's your neighborhood, and folks is liable to talk."
But she insisted that he accompany her as far as the house.
"I can't ask you in," she said, extending her hand at the foot of the steps.
The wind was humming wildly in sharply recurrent gusts, but still the rain held off.
"Do you know," he said, "taking it by and large, it's the happiest day of my life."
He took off his hat, and the wind rippled and twisted his black hair as he went on solemnly,
"And I'm sure grateful to God, or whoever or whatever is responsible for your being on this earth.
For you do like me heaps.
It's been my joy to hear you say so to-day.
It's—" He left the thought arrested, and his face assumed the familiar whimsical expression as he murmured:
"Dede, Dede, we've just got to get married.
It's the only way, and trust to luck for it's coming out all right—".
But the tears were threatening to rise in her eyes again, as she shook her head and turned and went up the steps.
CHAPTER XX
When the ferry system began to run, and the time between Oakland and San Francisco was demonstrated to be cut in half, the tide of Daylight's terrific expenditure started to turn.
Not that it really did turn, for he promptly went into further investments.
Thousands of lots in his residence tracts were sold, and thousands of homes were being built.
Factory sites also were selling, and business properties in the heart of Oakland.
All this tended to a steady appreciation in value of Daylight's huge holdings.
But, as of old, he had his hunch and was riding it.
Already he had begun borrowing from the banks.
The magnificent profits he made on the land he sold were turned into more land, into more development; and instead of paying off old loans, he contracted new ones.