“Sí. I sabe,” Manuel replied quickly, knowing at once why El Señor had given this order.
“Don’t turn off the malacate. See that nobody comes near it. Stay close by.”
Manuel nodded assent. “I stay here.”
“Manuel is the best watchman we’ve ever had,” Mr. Eldridge told the girls. “I can trust him not to go to sleep.”
When Jo Ann found herself in the rawhide bag tied at the end of the long cable and being dropped down into the shaft’s eerie darkness, she felt a queer sinking sensation at the pit of her stomach, as if she were falling through bottomless space. “It’s breath-taking—scary,” she thought.
It was with a gasp of relief that she stepped out of the bag and onto the rocky bottom of the shaft. She knew exactly how Peggy felt when she scrambled out of the bag a little later and exclaimed, “Wh-ew! My heart’s up here!” She was clutching her throat dramatically.
Together they waited for Florence’s descent. By their flashlights’ gleam they could see that her eyes were dilated and her lips tightly closed.
“It scared you speechless,” grinned Peggy after waiting a moment for her to speak.
Florence nodded and managed a “Took my breath!”
It seemed to all three that of all the cold, damp, terrifying places to work, a silver mine was the worst. Mr. Eldridge led them through low narrow tunnels and into several black, cavernous recesses opening from these passageways and showed them the different mining processes.