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 [Pg 47]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 Japanese 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. [Pg 47] 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. [Pg 48]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 assistance. The humor for it grew upon him as the reassuring comfort and cheer of his surroundings gradually permeated his consciousness. [Pg 48] 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 circumstances 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 [Pg 49]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 space of the next
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