Benito turned the bergantin into a cove, and they went ashore.  His house, flat roofed and built of adobe, was near, standing in a field, filled with spiky and thorny plants.  They gave Ned a breakfast, the ordinary peasant fare of the country, but in abundance, and then the woman, who seemed to be in a sense the spokesman of the family, said very gravely: 

“You are a good boy, Weel-le-am, and you rowed well.  What more do you wish of us?”

Benito also bent his dark eyes upon him in serious inquiry.  Ned was not prepared for any reply.  He did not know just what to do and on impulse he answered: 

“I would stay with you a while and work.  You will not find me lazy.”

He waved his hand toward the spiky and thorny field.  Benito consulted briefly with his wife and they agreed.  For three or four days Ned toiled in the hot field with Benito and the boys and at night he slept on the floor of earth.  The work was hard and it made his body sore.  The food was of the roughest, but these things were trifles compared with the gift of freedom which he had received.  How glorious it was to breathe the fresh air and to have only the sky for a roof and the horizon for walls!

Benito and the older boy again took the bergantin loaded with vegetables up La Viga to the city.  They did not suggest that Ned go with them.  He remained working in the field, and trying to think of some way in which he could obtain money for a journey.  The wind was good, the bergantin traveled fast, and Benito and his boy returned speedily.  Benito greeted Ned with a grave salute, but said nothing until an hour later, when they sat by a fire outside the hut, eating the tortillas and frijoles which Juana had cooked for them.

“What is the news in the capital?” asked Ned.

Benito pondered his reply.

“The President, the protector of us all, the great General Santa Anna, grows more angry at the Texans, the wild Americans who have come into the wilderness of the far North,” he replied.  “They talk of an army going soon against them, and they talk, too, of a daring escape.”

He paused and contemplatively lit a cigarrito.

“What was the escape?” asked Ned, the pulse in his wrist beginning to beat hard.

“One of the Texans, whom the great Santa Anna holds, but a boy they say he was, though fierce, slipped between the bars of his window and is gone.  They wish to get him back; they are anxious to take him again for reasons that are too much for Benito.”

“Do you think they will find him?”

“How do I know?  But they say he is yet in the capital, and there is a reward of one hundred good Spanish dollars for the one who will bring him in, or who will tell where he is to be found.”

Benito quietly puffed at his cigarrito and Juana, the cooking being over, threw ashes on the coals.

“If he is still hiding within reach of Santa Anna’s arm,” said Ned, “somebody is sure to betray him for the reward.”