ooked
over my bargains. He didn't do a thing but fire me, right off the reel.
Honest, I'd never been fired so impetuous or so enthusiastic. He invites
me to get off the place, which means hiking back to Buenos Ayres.

"Well, what can you do with a Scotchman who's mad clear to the marrow?
Especially a rough actor like McNutt. I'd already done a mile from the
village when along comes 'Chita in her roadster. You know, old man
Alvarado's only daughter. Some senorita, 'Chita is. You should have seen
those black eyes of her's flash when she heard how abrupt I'd been
turned loose. 'We shall go straight to papa,' says she. 'He will tell
Senor McNutt where he gets off.' She meant well, 'Chita. But I had my
doubts. I knew that Alvarado was pretty strong for McNutt. I'd heard him
say there wasn't another man in the Argentine who knew more about wool
than McNutt, and if it came to a showdown as to which of us stayed on I
wouldn't have played myself for a look in.

"So while 'Chita is stepping on the gas button and handing out a swell
line of sympathy I begins to hint that there's one particular reason why
I hated to leave El Placida. Oh, we'd played around some before that.
Strictly off stage stuff, though; a little mandolin practice in the
moonlight, a few fox trot lessons, and so on. But before the old man I'd
let on to be skirt shy. It went big with him, I noticed. But there in
the car I decides that the only way to keep in touch with the family
check book is to make a quick bid for 'Chita. So I cut loose with the
best Romeo lines I had in stock. Twice 'Chita nearly ditched us, but
finally she pulls up alongside the road and gives her whole attention
to what I had to say. Oh, they know how to take it, those sonoritas.
She'd had a whole string of young rancheros and caballeros dangling
around her for the past two years. But somehow I must have had a lucky
break, for the next thing I knew we'd gone to a fond clinch and it was
all over except the visit to the church."

"And you married the job, eh?" says I. "Fast work, I'll say. But how did
papa take it?"

"Well, for the first ten minutes," says Ambrose, "I thought I'd been
caught out in a thunderstorm while an earthquake and a sham battle were
being staged. But pretty soon he got himself soothed down, patted me on
the shoulder and remarked that maybe I'd do as well as some others that
he hadn't much use for. And while he didn't make McNutt eat his words or
anything like that,