ind, and my lazy hounds of _hombres_ can't find it either, it seems.
It's one of the clearwings--transparent. Here's a transparent silver
one. But this new one is gold, transparent gold, and the spots are
opaque gold.' His mouth fairly watered. 'I tell you, I will spend
anything, pay anything, to get that gold butterfly. And if the natives
can't or won't find it for me, my friend, I'll send for some one who
can and will.'

"I quite believed him, though I was no friend of his. I didn't know
much about butterflies, but I guessed that in Paris or London his
collection would be beyond price. But I wasn't prepared, two months
later, for Scott and his friend.

"Derek Scott. Ever meet him? A very ordinary kind of young Northerner.
He was remarkable only in having everything a little in excess of his
type--a little squarer in jaw and shoulder, a little longer in nose
and leg, a little keener of eye and slower of tongue. I'd never have
looked at him twice, as he landed from the dirty steamer with a lot of
tin boxes, if it hadn't been that he was hale and sound, with hope in
his eyes. Health and hope, at Herares!

"Then little Daurillac ran up the gangway, laughing. I looked at
him--every one did--and wondered. And then, to cap the wonder, the two
came up to me with their friendly, confident young faces, and asked
for Henkel's house.

"'Turn to the left,' I said. And then I added, 'You'll excuse me, but
what does Henkel want of you?'

"Scott didn't answer at first, but looked me over with his considering
eyes, and I remembered a collarless shirt and a four days' beard.
But Daurillac said, 'He wants butterflies of us, Monsieur. I am an
entomologist, and my friend he assists me.' He drew up very straight,
but his eyes were laughing at himself. Then we exchanged names and
shook hands, and I watched them going along the path to Henkel's.

"Next day Scott came down to the jetty. He sat on a stump and stared
at everything. He was ready enough to talk, in his guarded way. Yes,
he was new to the tropics; in some ways they were not what he had
expected, but he was not disappointed. He was here for the novelty,
the experience. But his friend, Louis Daurillac, had been in the
Indies, and with some of Meyer's men in Burma after orchids. Louis's
father was a great naturalist, and Louis was very clever. Yes, Henkel
had got hold of him through Meyer. He wanted some one to find this
butterfly for him--this golden butterfly at the headwate