Fresh air came in to them as they opened the door. Seeming a part of that fresh air was the tall and lean man whom they encountered on the narrow sidewalk. A man in white linen of unmilitary cut, on his close-cropped head a slouched panama that had seen better days. As the three hailed a passing calesa and took refuge within its cramped depths from the downpour, the man took off the battered panama and carefully drained the water from its brim. The little horse attached to the calesa by casual harness ambled down the street. Above the sloshing sound made by the little horse’s feet as he wandered through the puddles, the tall man lifted up his voice and spoke: “Hard time getting away from the dames at the hotel,” he announced grimly. “Those women would chew over a bit of heaven itself until it was as pallid and unappetizing as an over-masticated piece of bacon! I fled for my life, finally. Healthier down in the bowels of the earth, surrounded by gold that doesn’t belong to me, and that I am merely passing on for the chaps who are buying up Masbate.” “Does it never make you want some gold of your own, Mayhew?” inquired the curious Angier. “I’d not be able to stand the strain of being a mining expert. Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink. That sort of stuff.” “Might if I hadn’t been very busy with something else. I’ve been prospecting for human gold. Struck the vein once, and lost it through a fluke.” He turned a rather shame-faced gaze on his friends. “What would you say if I told you that for years I’d been chasing a pipe-dream from pillar to post--always trying to catch up with it and see if I was right in my assay? Taking unlikely jobs which would carry me to unlikely places--never overlooking a dance hall this side of hell--with only one thing tangible enough to prove to me that it wasn’t actually a dream--a broken slipper heel that I’d picked up in the street on my way back from--from the vision, you might say!” “So it’s a woman you’ve been sleuthing, you old son of a gun!” howled gleefully the unobservant Angier. But Kirwin leaned forward and touched the cochero on the shoulder. “_Mano!_” he commanded. “And hurry that plug along!” The calesa turned a corner on one of its two inadequate wheels. The three men were thrown against each other. “What the devil, Kirwin----” began Angier. “Oh, I see!” He whistled softly. “_Sila!_” Kirwin directed the cochero. The calesa veered around a curve on its other wheel. “_Poco más!_” The calesa came to an abrupt halt in front of the dance hall that they had quitted a short time before. The men of the jazz band were coming out, their swathed instruments under their arms. The proprietor was fitting the key into the lock of the door.