he two culprits. Then he marched the three boys back to
the village in front of his horse, Tonio with his blistered hands and
torn clothes, Juan with bumps that were already much swollen, and
Ignacio wet as a drowned rat and carrying the rags of the serape.

[Illustration]

When they got back to the river they found Dona Teresa there washing
out some clothes. When she saw them coming she stopped rubbing and
looked at them. She was perfectly astonished. She supposed, of course,
that Tonio was in school.

"Here, Dona Teresa, is a very bad boy," Senor Fernandez said to her. "He
has been chasing my goat all around the pasture and lassoing it, and he
left the bars down and they are broken besides, and no one knows where
the goat is by this time. I'll leave him to you, but I want you to make
a thorough job of It."

He didn't say just what she should make a thorough job of, but Tonio
hadn't the smallest doubt about what he meant. Dona Teresa seemed to
understand too.

Senor Fernandez rode on and left Tonio with his mother while he took the
other two boys to their homes. What happened there I do not know, but
when she and Tonio were alone I do know that Dona Teresa said sternly,
"Go bring me a strong switch from the willow tree," and that Tonio
thought, as he went for it, that there were more willow trees in the
world than were really needed.

And I know that when Dona Teresa had done "IT"--whatever it was that
Senor Fernandez had asked her to do thoroughly--Tonio felt that it
would be a very long time before he took any interest in either lizards
or goats again.

That evening Pancho went out with Pinto and hunted up the goat and put
him back in the pasture and brought home Tonio's lasso, and when he hung
it up on the nail he said to Tonio, "I think you're too young to be
trusted with a lasso. Let that alone for two weeks."

That was the very worst of all. To be told that he was too young! Tonio
went out and sat down under the fig tree and thought perhaps he'd better
run away.

But pretty soon Tita came out and sat down beside him and told him she
was sure he never meant any harm about the lizard, and his mother washed
his skinned hands and put oil on then, and brought him some molasses to
eat on his tortillas just as if she still loved him in spite of
everything.

So Tonio went to bed quite comforted, and that was the end of the day.

[Illustration]

[11] Mah-[)e]s'tr[=o].

[12] Hwahn.

[13] Ig-nah'