“I don’t know whether it was exactly fair not to tell Auntie about my seeing the ghost,” was Patsy’s first remark to Bee after they had regained their room. “It’s like this, Bee. I’ve thought of a plan I’d like to try. I have an idea the ghost will come back and I’m going to be ready for it. If Auntie knew that I’d actually seen it, she’d probably have our bed moved into her room. Mab and Nellie’s room is almost across the corridor from hers, you know. We’re farther away, so she’d worry if she knew what we know. I’m going to tell her sometime, of course, but not now. Will you stand by me, Bee, and help me catch the ghost?”
“I will,” vowed Beatrice, too much carried away by the scheme to reflect that she and Patsy were perhaps pitting themselves against a dangerous opponent. “Do you believe, Patsy, that Carlos really has gone away?”
“No; I don’t. I think Carlos is the ghost,” calmly asserted Patsy. “Furthermore, he knows a way to get into this house that we don’t. All the men in Florida sent to guard Las Golondrinas won’t catch him. When Dad spoke of getting a guard, I had half a mind to speak up about seeing the ghost. Then I decided not to. I wanted to see what we could do by ourselves.”
“What are we going to do? You said you had a plan.”
“I have. I’m going to lasso the ghost,” Patsy announced with a boyish grin. “I learned to handle a lariat when I was out West three years ago visiting Pauline Barry. One of the cowboys on her father’s ranch taught me the way to do it. There’s a coil of light, thin, tough rope in the stable. I saw it the other day. That’s going to be my lariat. I’ll smuggle it up here and practice with it. This is such a big room I can swing it easily in here.”
“I don’t see how you can carry out that plan,” was Bee’s doubting answer. “How can you possibly know when the ghost is going to appear? Besides, you mayn’t have time, perhaps, or a chance to do any lassoing.”
“That’s the only hard part of it. You and I will have to take turns sitting up and watching, Bee. Suppose we go to bed at eleven o’clock, as we usually do. Well, from eleven until two I’ll sit up and watch. From two until five it will be your turn. After five no ghost will be silly enough to walk. I’ll take the part of the night when it’s more likely to appear, because I know how to swing the lariat. If it appears during your watch——Let me see. I guess I’d better teach you how to lasso. No; that won’t do. It takes a long time to learn the trick. You’d be apt to miss the ghost. Then we’d never catch it.”
“I think we’d both better sit up until a little after two for a few nights,” proposed Bee. “If we’re sleepy the next day we can take a nap. It was just about two this morning when the ghost came. If Carlos is the ghost, he may appear to your aunt or Mab and Nellie another time and not come near us. If he’s trying to scare us away from here, that’s what he’d be apt to do.”
“He may have wandered into their rooms, too, for all we know, only they didn’t happen to wake up and see him,” surmised Patsy. “There’s only a bare chance that anything will come of it, but it will be exciting to try out our plan for a few nights while it’s bright moonlight. Our scheme wouldn’t work during the dark of the moon. Now while the moon’s full you can see for yourself how light it makes this room. Then, too, a big white ghost is an easy mark,” finished Patsy with a giggle.
“All right, Patsy. I pledge myself to become a valiant ghost catcher,” laughed Bee. “Now let’s go bye-bye or we’ll never be able to sit up to-morrow night. The only thing that bothers me is not telling your aunt.”