They remembered what the Tall Man had said about coming back to punish any one who should tell of the secret meeting, and they remembered how fierce his voice sounded as he said it.
When at last they rode into the gate of the hacienda every one was so glad to see them that the Twins felt like heroes.
José waved his hat and shouted when he saw them coming, and Jasmin came tearing out to meet them with his tongue hanging out and his tail stuck straight out behind him like the smoke behind a fast locomotive.
The news spread quickly through the village, and all the boys and girls and the [p 155] mothers came swarming out of their huts to greet them and to ask a thousand questions about where they had been.
The first one to reach them was Doña Teresa. She came running out of the chapel, with her rebozo flying out behind her almost like Jasmin’s tail, and she clasped them in her arms and kissed them again and again and called them her lambs, her angels, her precious doves.
[p 156]
She kissed the hands of Carmen and thanked her, and then she ran back with the Twins to the chapel and made them say a prayer of thankfulness with her before the image of the Virgin.
VI
It was not until she had them all to herself in their little adobe hut that she made them tell her every word about their adventure. Of course they told their mother everything—about the fire and the Tall Man, and the guns, and what he said about coming back to punish any one who told.
Doña Teresa rocked back and forth on her knees and wiped her eyes on her apron as she listened to them, while at the same time she made them hot chocolate on the brasero.