“It’s very simple. Señor Castizo has taken an inordinate fancy for me. Dear Dulzura goes home with her maid to Valparaiso in about three weeks time, but her father stops. He is going into the wilds of Patagonia, where he has been before, and knows the lay of the land well. And he asked me to stay too, and accompany him.”
“Yes, and what did you say?”
“I said I’d do so like a shot, if I got you and Greenie to come with us.”
Jill’s eyes sparkled with delight.
“It would be simply glorious,” he said. “And I’m sure mother wouldn’t mind, nor aunt either.”
“But we haven’t much money to rig up,” I said.
“Oh, we’ve enough, I assure you. It’s a cheap country to live in. Castizo says about all a man wants is a guanaco robe and a gun, with a horse or two, and there you are.”
I confess I was quite as struck with the notion of having a few wild adventures in the Land of the Giants as Jill was; but, being the elder, I was of course bound to prudence and discretion.
“We’d have to write a very long letter home,” I said.
“Well, you’re capable of doing that, I believe.”