"My brother went to Guariqui seven years ago," she said, quite sober by this time. "He was compelled to go there to look after my father's nitrate claims."
"Your father, then, was an American!" interrupted McKinnon. He felt glad, in some vague way, as he saw her head-shake of assent.
"He was an American soldier," she said, and McKinnon noticed the almost phosphorescent kindling of her eyes as she uttered the words.
"Yes," he responded encouragingly.
"We are—or, rather, we used to be the New Orleans Boyntons," she answered. "But father had interests in Argentina, cattle lands and things, and property in Belgrano, where the English-speaking colony is, just outside Buenos Ayres. So for nine years Buenos Ayres was our home—if you could say we ever had a home. But as I wanted to tell you, my brother Arturo was a mining engineer. I think, too, he had a good deal of father's spirit of adventure. He saw great chances in Locombia, but what was more important, he found that the altitude of Guariqui agreed with him. So he stayed on and on, and kept working harder and harder, and getting newer interests, until finally he undertook to work the abandoned government mines with Doctor Duran. They were copper mines."
