“Well, when you left me standing alone in the dark room, I happened to take a step backward and that caused me to sit down very suddenly in a big mahogany chair. I caught at the arms and I must have pushed a button that was part of the carving. Instantly I realized that I was slowly sinking, although it was so dark I could not tell just what was happening. The floor seemed to have opened under me and very quietly and easily the chair was descending like an elevator. At last I was convinced that I had been let down through a trap-door. I could hear it closing above me. I found myself in a dark room. I didn’t dare leave the chair, however, so there I sat, shouting lustily for help, but I could not make you hear. I must have been there an hour when I decided that I would experiment with the chair. I thought that if by pushing one knob I had caused it to descend into the cellar-like room, there must be another knob that would lift it again. At last I found such a contrivance, pushed it and slowly the chair ascended. I gave a cry of joy when I was once more in the front room, I sprang from the chair, knocking over a small table which fell with a crash and here I am. Now that it’s all over, I am glad that it happened. What an exciting experience it will be to tell Cousin Bob.”
“And so you see, girls, the mysterious Trujillo had nothing to do with it,” Virginia said.
Peyton, however, remembering the unoccupied bunk-house of the overseer was still troubled, but a moment later his fears concerning the loyalty of his cowboy were set at rest. The galloping of a horse’s feet was heard and then a hallooing. Peyton swung open the door and Trujillo stood there.
Rapidly in Spanish he told the other lad that one of the peons had reported early in the evening that a yearling had fallen into a water-hole and that together they had departed to endeavor to rescue it. Luckily there was but little water in the hole and the young cow, though greatly frightened, was unhurt and they had brought it back to keep for a few days in the hospital corral.
This was all so commonplace that it restored the girls to a more normal state of mind and Peyton rebuked himself for having doubted his head rider who was ever serving him so faithfully.
“Now, let’s go to bed, girls, and forget all that has happened. We are quite used to elevators and since we know that the Don, who built this house, needed some way to hide quickly from his pursuers, we can easily understand his descending chair. Tomorrow I intend to take a ride in it.”
Virginia’s matter of fact tone calmed the younger and more nervous girls and soon they retired.
The recent owners of the Three Cross Ranch had built a wing leading from the kitchen. This contained two simply furnished bedrooms which the four girls were to occupy.
Betsy Clossen was the last to fall asleep. She kept wondering where she had seen Trujillo before. Nowhere, that she could remember, and yet, if not, why did she seem to be haunted with the idea that she had seen him.