“Yes. Do you mean to say you don’t know that?”

“I had a notion that it was the Argentine. My Indian friends invariably speak of the white inhabitants as Argentinos.”

“But how did you get here?”

“By crossing the Andes.”

“With a party?”

“No, alone.”

His questioner whistled. “By Jove!” he cried, “you had your nerve with you.”

“I couldn’t help myself. I was a prisoner in the hands of a Trans-Andean tribe, and they turned me adrift. I had to win through somehow, or die.”

“What’s your name, anyhow?”

“John Darien Power.”