Dick looked, and one look was enough. He pronounced my name with a shriek, and dropping his lantern, fled from the cellar, closely followed by his cousin. At first I was greatly astonished at their behavior, but after thinking the matter over, I began to understand it. Reginald and Richard are very ignorant men, in spite of their fine flow of language, and of course they are superstitious. They believe in signs and omens, and apparitions, and knowing that they had put me at the bottom of the lake, they could not comprehend how I came to be standing there alive and unharmed. This, as I have said, suggested to me a plan of action. I knew all about those secret passage-ways, and I made use of them to keep those two guilty men in a constant state of alarm. I gave up herding cattle and spent all my time loitering about the house, listening to the conversations between Reginald and his followers, and showing myself whenever I saw an opportunity to frighten somebody. I tied a piece of thick green cloth over the bull’s-eye of a dark lantern, and carrying this in my hand I used to wander about the passage-ways of nights, uttering the most unearthly shrieks and howls. I paid regular visits to Reginald’s sleeping-room and Dick’s, and took possession of everything I could carry away, such as money, weapons, clothing and furniture. Old Juan undertook to watch the cellar. He showed himself every time Reginald, Richard, or Pedro went in there, and finally frightened Richard so badly that he left the house and went to live in a little cabin he built in the mountains.
“One night I went into a room to see what I could pick up, and whom should I find there but Ned Sanders and an outlaw friend of his fast asleep in bed. I took possession of their weapons, carried them into the passage-way out of their reach, and then placing my lantern in one corner, and taking my stand in the middle of the room where the light would fall squarely on my face, began to groan awfully. I was not long in arousing them, and when their eyes were fairly open they were not long in leaving the room either. I never found an opportunity to appear to Sanders after that, for he shunned the rancho as if it had been a grizzly bear’s den.”