Life in the far West Author:Charles H. Simpson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 32 IN THE COUNTERFEITERS DEN. it was perfectly loose and came out easily. All the rest were removed in the same way, when, to their surprise, they found that ... more »the support moved easily. On moving it to one side, a trap door was discovered which raised easily, disclosing a flight of steps that led down into a dark, narrow passage below. Down into the passage they went, with guns in readiness, alert and careful. A heavy plank door closed the passage, but fortunately, or rather unfortunately, it was not fastened— strange too, but they took no further notice of it. Pushing the door open, they entered a small room where they found all the necessary tools and fixtures of the burglars and counterfeiter's art, together with some thousands of dollars of counterfeit money. But the man was not there. "Can it be possible that he has eluded us?" asked the old man. "He certainly has occupied this room, and that too while we were searching the house. I—" "Listen!', whispered Charley, "I heard something; it sounded like footsteps on the stairs." But listening again they heard nothing. The old man went up to the head of the stairs, but seeing nothing, returned and began searching the room. ' 'It must have been a rat," he said. ' 'There's no one above; the door leading up stairs is locked, so that no one could get out or in." Just then he, noticed a place beneath the stairs—the only place that they had not searched, but there was no one there, though there was plenty of room for a man to bide. TRAPPED. 33 "You are sure, are you, that there is no place above where he could have hid from you?" asked Charley. "Yes, I am sure," replied the old man. "There was but one place and that was behind the support—I looked there." "But the trap door, did you—" "God!" cried...« less