"'What will become of them?' 'What can they do?' 'A helpless woman like Mrs. Oldham and a young daughter!'" He mimicked feminine voices. "You heard that sort of thing bleated on every side. All the women advanced positive opinions on just what they ought to do. The consensus, I believe, amounted to this, that it was the part of wisdom for the Oldhams to sell everything they had left and depart for some obscure German or French town where Marcia might perfect herself in the languages and fit herself for a nursery governess or something of that kind.

"But"--again a fit of laughing which almost choked him--"to the disapproval, even horror and disgust of all kind friends, the eccentric Oldhams did nothing of the kind. They went along as they always had, and certainly they did not then display nor ever have displayed any lack of money. They live simply, entertain very little; but Marcia who is considered a beauty goes out constantly. She is seen everywhere, dresses quite as well as her school friends, Kitty Hampton and Bea Habersham, with whom she always appears, and who, as of course you know, have both married enormous amounts of money. Her extravagance is hardly discreet, considering a watchful and censorious world; but when one has such powerful and extremely loyal friends, discretion is unnecessary."

"She paints beautifully, I understand," said Hayden indignantly.

Penfield's thin laughter stabbed his ear-drums. "If she sold in a year all the pretty little pictures she paints it would barely pay for her gowns. No, that won't do. But," and a new note crept into Penfield's voice, "did you see that old duffer who was with her? That's where she shows her discretion. He is kept very much in the background. It is only occasionally that she appears with him."

"Who is he?" asked Hayden gruffly, desperately ashamed of himself for stooping to question Penfield.

Penfield elevated his eyebrows and spread his hands. "Let us hope that he is the rich uncle from Australia," he said gently. "Ah, Hayden, Bea and Kitty have managed the affair with Wilfred Ames beautifully so far. They Have almost succeeded in pulling it off in spite of the reluctant lady and Wilfred's raving mother; but Wilfred, good, old, thick-witted Wilfred, is becoming daily more uncomfortable. Fido won't lie down and go to sleep on the hearth-rug as Kitty and Bea wish him to. On the contrary, owing to his mother's watchful vigilance, he is sniffing around quite suspiciously, and," with a series of chuckles, "I believe, although I am not sure yet, that the fair Marcia has a rival, and a rival to be reckoned with, I a.s.sure you."

Hayden felt he had stood all that he could. Penfield really was too offensive. His first impulse was to turn on his heel and leave his companion without a word; but on second thoughts, he decided to retain Penfield's company, and put into execution a little plan which was rapidly maturing in his brain, and which appealed to his hazard-loving fancy. It was a mere chance, one in a million, but he considered it worth taking. Penfield knew all the world and its affairs. He, more than any one Hayden could think of, might be of use to him in a certain Argonautic expedition he was adventuring upon. He decided to put it to the test, anyway.

"So you, too, are interested in mines," he said, with an easy change of subject. "Well," with a short laugh, "as far as they are concerned, I happen to be in the position of a man who sees a spring of water in the desert and may not stoop to drink of it."

"What on earth do you mean?" cried Horace. His head shot forward, his nose twitched. He scented a fresh piece of news as a dog scents truffles.

"Have you found a fortune?" His curiosity was as fully aroused as Hayden hoped.

They had reached the latter's apartment by this time and Hayden paused a moment on the step. "Come in," he said, "and I will tell you. You have not seen my diggings, anyway."

By what he considered a sheer stroke of luck, he, Hayden, had not been two days in New York, when an old friend, who was under the necessity of taking a long journey with the expectation of being absent several months, urged him to take possession of the apartment he and his wife were temporarily vacating. After a sight of it, Hayden gladly embraced the opportunity and now, he and his j.a.panese servant, Tatsu, the companion of ten wandering years, were installed in beautiful and luxurious quarters which had come without the lifting of a finger to secure them.

Here was a fresh field for Penfield's inevitable investigations, and Hayden's disclosures of his private affairs, deeply as they interested him, could wait a bit. Horace was patient by nature and training. "One thing at a time," was a favorite motto, and it was not until he had exhausted the possibilities of the apartment and had peered into every nook and corner, that he consented to sit down in the comfortable library and express his commendation of the place and envy Hayden's luck.

Robert, on his part, had followed his guest about, replying mechanically to his questions and endeavoring to throw off a depression which had crept over him.

The night had been cold, and to one with any decency of feeling, Penfield was a disagreeable companion; but if noxious he also had his uses, and the more Hayden pondered the matter, the more he was strengthened in his decision to secure Penfield's a.s.sistance. The humor for it grew upon him as the rea.s.suring comfort and cheer of his surroundings gradually permeated his consciousness.

He was, as he felt, really risking very little. As he had said to Horace, he was in the position of a man who has found a spring in the desert, but may not stoop to drink. No, all the publicity Penfield could give to the fact of his, Hayden's, discovery of the spring might be of incalculable benefit to him in his search for the owners of a certain property, and could, under no circ.u.mstances work him an injury, so long as he kept the secret of the situation inviolably locked in his breast, and no matter whose imagination might be fired by the tale, he felt a reasonable security. Experienced prospectors, experts in their line, had been seeking this symbolic well in the desert for twenty-five years and he, not by virtue of his skill or knowledge, but by a mere fluke, a glorious accident, had stumbled on it. It was hardly likely that another should have a similar experience, within the s.p.a.ce of the next few months at any rate, and the next few months were all he asked.

The wood-fire on the hearth flickered redly over the walls, the lamps were lighted in antic.i.p.ation of his arrival; easy chairs were drawn near the fire; books, papers and magazines were temptingly displayed on the table.

"What were we talking about before we came up?" said Hayden, with the effect of mental effort.

"Mines," Horace replied promptly. "You were about to tell me of a big find you've made. Go on."

"Ah, yes. But"--Hayden laughed a little ruefully--"you've put the thing entirely too definitely when you say 'a big find I've made.' The bother of it is that I have and I haven't."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Horace, c.o.c.king his head sidewise and looking at his host speculatively.

"Just what I say," replied the latter. "You see, it happened down in South America, several months ago. We were running a railroad through a great estate, oh, an enormous estate in the mountains. You could get about any variation of climate and soil you wanted. Well, there was a tradition about the place which I heard again and again, and which gradually grew to haunt my imagination; it was that somewhere on this estate was a lost mine of stupendous value; and that although no one had apparently any idea where it might be located, or had succeeded in finding a trace of it, nevertheless, according to current report, it had been worked within the last quarter of a century, that is, worked in a primitive and intermittent sort of way."

"But," interrupted Penfield, "twenty-five years! That of course is within the memory of dozens of people. What on earth--"

"Wait," said Hayden. "Your part of this game is to listen calmly, not interrupt. Don't you suppose I considered all those points? Now to go back into the history of the thing; this is the story that I gathered, here a little, there a little, and gradually pieced together.

"This vast estate was one of the holdings of a very ancient and n.o.ble Spanish family. It was, as I have said, situated in the mountains, and naturally comprised great tracts of valueless land, barren and rocky, although there were also fertile valleys and broad cultivated plateaus. A great mansion, the home of Don Raimond De Leon, the owner of the estate, was situated on one of these plateaus and commanded one of the most beautiful views one could dream of. One gazes down the mountain side on fields of corn and alfalfa, green as emerald, and orchards of blooming fruit-trees; down, down these terraces fall until at their feet lie the tropical valleys with their orange and pineapple groves, and wild, luxuriant vegetation; and then, one turns and glances upward; above him the barren mountain sides, the summits austere, remote, covered with perpetual snow.

"Well, here surrounded by every form of natural scenery, there lived, I say, this old don and his only daughter, Lolita. Of course she had a name a mile long, Maria Annunciata Mercedes Eugenie and all the rest, but they called her Lolita for convenience. The traditions of their rank were always rigidly maintained. They lived in feudal state and splendor, occasionally journeying to Spain; and the daughter, in addition to her beauty, was possessed of all the graces and accomplishments of a young woman of her cla.s.s.

"But while yet in the flower of her beauty and youth, an American adventurer, a soldier of fortune, appeared upon the scene. He had either come by design or strayed there by mistake, probably the former; but that, however, is immaterial. He happened to possess those first requisites of the successful soldier of fortune--a charming personality, a pretty wit, and a most ready address. In a very short time, the hacienda and all that it contained were his. He captured not only the daughter but the old don himself, and to him the latter confided the source of the family's almost illimitable wealth, the source, but not its location; and this source was a hidden mine, called oddly enough 'The Veiled Mariposa.'"

Penfield started as if he had been shot. "What did you say that name was?" he cried, his ferret-face sharpened with eagerness.

"The Veiled Mariposa," repeated Hayden, watching him keenly, and overjoyed at the success of his plan. It was evident that Horace knew something. "Mariposa is the Spanish name for b.u.t.terfly, you know."

"By Jove, what a coincidence!" muttered Penfield.

"A coincidence? How? What do you mean?" It was Robert's turn to be eager now. "Have you heard of it? Have you?"

Penfield shook his head. "Not of it exactly, but--but--"

"But--but--" repeated Hayden impatiently. He felt injured and showed it.

"You evidently know something, but you won't tell me. Do you think that is playing quite fair, Horace?"

"Bosh! I'm playing fair all right. I'll tell you fast enough when there's anything to tell. What I have in mind may be the merest coincidence, probably is. I want to do a bit of thinking first before I say anything.

But go on with your story. What has all this to do with you?"

"Where was I? Oh, yes." Hayden took up the thread of his narrative again.

"Well, the soldier of fortune married the don's lovely daughter with the old father's entire approval. They had a great wedding, the festivities lasting for days. Don Raimond bestowed bags and bags of gold and silver on them, and they sailed away for France.

"Now, contrary to the customary fate of such unions, the marriage although childless turned out happily. For the next ten years or so, the American and his Spanish wife, his name by the way was Willoughby, lived in great magnificence in the various capitals of Europe, maintaining an almost royal state and entertaining constantly on a grand scale.

Occasionally, they visited the father in South America, and once or twice he visited them, and the bags of gold were always punctually forthcoming.

"Then suddenly, a most appalling thing happened. The district in which the old don lived was swept by a plague of unusual virulence. De Leon succ.u.mbed before he had time to make any disposition of his property, even write a line to his daughter. His Yankee overseer in charge of the mine was also stricken the same day and followed his employer within a few hours, and the Indian and Spanish laborers on the estate went like sheep. There is a rumor that misfortunes did not cease here, but that the plague was followed by an earthquake of a most devastating nature, and thus the population of that especial district was almost wiped out.

"As soon as the news of these disasters reached the Willoughbys they took pa.s.sage at once for South America to verify the terrible rumors. They found their worst fears confirmed, and to crown their sorrows, Willoughby, after going over De Leon's papers again and again, could find no map of the mine, nor any directions as to its location. There were records enough of the ore mined and shipped, all in the old don's handwriting, but nothing to aid his son-in-law in rediscovering the mine.

"Willoughby immediately put some experienced prospectors to work and secured the services of several geological experts, but to no avail. The mine, mentioned always in the don's doc.u.ments as The Veiled Mariposa, seemed to have vanished as completely as if it had never existed, or to have been sunk by the earthquake into the very bowels of the earth.

"All his efforts to find it having proved useless--efforts extending over several years--Willoughby put a young nephew of De Leon's, who had recently arrived from Spain, in temporary charge of the estate and returned with his wife to France. Accustomed now for many years to a vast, unconditioned expenditure, he found it impossible to contemplate the comparative poverty which stared him in the face and he resolved to try to dispose of the whole estate, which a will of De Leon's made at the time of her marriage conferred intact upon his daughter Lolita.

"He hoped to sell at a magnificent figure. He trusted to his own magnetic eloquence and his indisputable proofs of the enormous revenues of the mine to inflame the cupidity of the purchaser or purchasers to such a degree that he would find no difficulty in securing a sum which would enable him to live in comfort, even luxury, for the remainder of his days. He was not successful in arranging the matter abroad and he came to this country about six years ago hoping to make a better bargain. He remained here in New York several months and then sailed for France on _The Princess Verona_."

"_The Princess Verona_," interrupted Penfield. "Why, she was lost at sea; went down with a terrible loss of life."

Hayden nodded. "And neither Willoughby nor his wife was among the saved.

But just before sailing, he wrote to the Spanish nephew on the old estate, and also to his lawyers in France, announcing exultantly that he had been successful in his mission, having sold the property at a great figure, and that he would shortly write of all the details of the purchase. But from that day to this, the nephew has heard nothing further of the matter. There has been no effort to claim or to take possession of the property. That is, with this exception. Within the last six years, foreign prospectors have twice appeared on the estate, and on being questioned as to their business have said they came from the owners of the property. In both instances, however, they withheld the names of the people they were supposed to represent, and little credence was given to their story.

"But nevertheless, the French lawyers believe that the estate was sold, for just before sailing Willoughby purchased drafts in New York for a large sum of money.

"But where are the owners? Why should any one person or group of persons consider a property sufficiently desirable as to pay such a sum for it and then apparently drop the whole matter? It's unthinkable, incredible."

Hayden sprang to his feet and began to walk the floor. "That's the question that has been puzzling me for months. What is their game? What does their waiting mean? But that is what I am here for--to try and trace up those owners. I'm prepared to give time and money to the task, for, Horace"--a pa.s.sionate exultation rang through his voice--"I--I--have discovered the mine, the wonderful, lost Veiled Mariposa."

"The deuce you have!" exclaimed Penfield, actually showing something like excitement. "And is it really all that tradition says of it?"

"More," affirmed Robert solemnly. "I tell you, Horace, it makes the fabled treasures of the Incas look like thirty cents. Ah, it's--" He paused on the hearth-rug and looked down on the gossip in the chair. "I have told you the story because you know everybody and everything about everybody, and I hoped you might be able to help me in my investigations.

Your exclamation a while ago shows that you do know something."