“Oh, I see what you mean!” Peggy exclaimed.
“But what would they want a secret passage for?” asked Florence.
“At the time this house was built,” replied Jo Ann, “there were rebellions and wars going on much of the time, and that secret passage may have been the means of escape, or it may have led to a hiding place. I can imagine several reasons why it would have been convenient.”
“Where do you suppose it goes?” Peggy asked curiously.
“I have a very good idea about that right now, but I’ll tell you later. I’m going down there and find out.” Jo Ann tilted her chin at a determined angle.
CHAPTER XII
FLORENCE’S SURPRISE
“Felipe certainly did look funny when you marched in with this big package in your arms,” laughed Peggy as she and Jo Ann entered their room. “He was probably wondering why you hadn’t taken him along to carry it for you.”
“So I noticed. His eyes were big as saucers, and he seemed to be trying to bore through the wrapping paper.” Jo Ann smiled complacently as she removed the paper from the package and took out a coil of rope twice as long as the one she had slipped into the house inside the parasol a few days before. “It seems strange, doesn’t it, to have to carry paper to the market with you to get your package wrapped, as I did this morning.”
Peggy nodded. “It’s a good thing you had that paper in your trunk. How are you going to fix that rope now that you have it—make a rope ladder?”
“No; I’m going to make loops in it as I did in the other piece. This hand-twisted ixtle rope—that’s the Mexican name for it—is so wiry that I’d have a time trying to make a ladder out of it. Florence said the Aztecs made this same kind of rope before the Spanish came to this country. It’s so stiff we’ll have no trouble getting our feet into the loops, and it’ll be almost as easy to climb as a ladder.”