“Si, Senor,” was the reply, and from his pocket the Mexican drew an envelope, much soiled from frequent handling.
Trujillo’s face brightened. “It is for this that I have been waiting,” was his remark, which greatly mystified Peyton, but he made no comment.
Then the overseer addressed the peon in Spanish, saying: “Pinez, you are dismissed. Return to Sonora but say nothing of the content of this letter.”
The peon’s manner was deferential in the extreme. Turning, he walked toward the long bunk-house from which, half an hour later, the girls saw him ride away toward the South on the small, mottled horse on which he had so recently arrived.
All through lunch the two boys talked about the affairs of the ranch as though nothing mysterious or unusual had happened. After the noon meal was finished the overseer turned toward the little mistress of Three Cross saying with frank pleasantness: “Senorita, I have heard you speak of a front room that you call haunted. With your kind permission, I would like to visit that room in your company.”
Babs was too well bred to show the astonishment she certainly felt. “Come, let us all go in there,” she replied, rising.
Trujillo stepped aside with Peyton to permit Barbara and her girl friends to enter. Betsy regretted that she had to go ahead as she wished to watch the overseer’s every move, for she felt that now, if ever, she would prove that she was really a good detective. She believed that the moment for solving the mystery had come.
Trujillo walked about, gazing especially at the life-sized portraits upon the walls. Indeed he was so absorbed in one and another that he seemed to quite forget their presence.
He stood for a long time before the painting of a beautiful young Spanish mother with a dark-eyed little girl on her lap and a tall, handsome youth standing at her side.
Trujillo, directly beneath this painting, turned and smiled at the almost breathless girls. He was about to speak, but before he could utter a word, there was a glad cry from Betsy Clossen.