Ydo leaned forward, her chin upon her hand, and surveyed him with a humorous, unabashed and admiring scrutiny. "Brother in kind if not in kin, little brother of the wild, you are great. But do you mean what you say? Are you really willing to run the chance of giving up a fortune to protect—"
"Nonsense!" he broke in roughly. "Don't go any further. There's no use in talking the thing over." He again sank into somber silence.
But Ydo was apparently unmoved. "There is one thing I meant to ask you this afternoon," she said, "but since I shall probably not have an opportunity to do so I want my curiosity appeased. Why is that mine called The Veiled Mariposa? Did you happen to find out?"
"Yes," he answered, still entirely without interest. "Because, as the maps and photographs show, the only way to reach it is by a little hidden trail just back of a waterfall. You would never suspect it. I happened on it by the merest chance, followed it, and discovered that the mine lay behind this mountain cascade."
"Ah, beautiful!" Ydo clapped her hands. "I remember, I am sure, the very cascade. Although perhaps not, there were many."
"You have been on the ground then?" he asked.
"Ah, yes, with prospectors. But," with a shrug of the shoulders, "we were not so lucky as you."
"The interview for the afternoon is of course off," he said, rising heavily and stretching out his hand for his hat.
"I suppose so," conceded Ydo. She smiled and sighed. "The pretty little coup I had planned is smashed. I have been arranging it for weeks, ever since I learned that you were interested in—But the gods have decreed it differently and have taken the matter into their own hands. Ah, well! But I shall hear again from you to‑day; and you will hear from me."