She finally asked if I would be willing to go into the room with her group and concentrate to see if I could get any strong feelings or vibrations.

Knowing that they would not leave unless I consented to doing this I reluctantly agreed. As we walked into room 109 she suggested we all hold hands in a circle, but all I wanted to do at the time was leave the room and the group. I forced myself to stay, hoping it would be over in a few minutes and they would leave. The minister closed the door of 109 and I joined hands in a circle, all the time feeling every inch of a fool.

When they asked me to close my eyes and concentrate, I did, but I did not expect to feel anything more than the usual fear. I am perceptive and I really tried to concentrate and I kept saying to myself, who are you and what do you want? I immediately sensed there was an entity in the room so I opened my eyes and looked towards the outer wall. There was a girl. A young girl, tall and slender with dishwater blond hair. Her arms were upraised as if she was trying to get out. She stood against the wall reaching upwards, a window to her left and the side wall to her right. She was clad in a bluish-green dress reminiscent of a paisley print.

"My God," I screamed, "It’s a girl, she’s trying to get out, she’s being held against her will."

"White slavery," the minister shouted.

"No, I told her," Not in this hotel, they didn’t need white slavery, there were fifty-three cat houses in Goldfield. This was an elegant hotel, they wouldn’t do this here."

I ran from the room into the lobby, shocked by this experience, my body shaking from what I had seen. These things happen to other people, not to me. But I had definitely seen that girl and I knew she was held unwillingly in that room.

The minister and her group had decided to leave when they saw how distraught I had become and immediately after their departure I went in search of Dennis.

I found him in the saloon.

"Dennis," I shouted. "I saw a girl in that room," and then I frantically related to him all the details of what I had seen.

"She was standing in the center of the room, Dennis, as if she was trying to get out. Why wasn’t she by the window? This questions puzzled me but eventually I was to find out the answer.

Unlike all other windows in the hotel that faced the outdoors, the windows in 109 opened into a back office behind the registry desk in the lobby. A chute-like concrete slab attached to the window allowed light to enter the room but also insured privacy from the back office. Room 109 also had the adjoining bathroom so it would be a perfect arrangement if the intention was to keep someone locked inside the hotel.

I tried to calm myself after discussing it with Dennis, but I could no resign myself to the fact that I had actually seen a girl in that room. Who was this girl? What had happened to her in that room years before and why did I still feel the same terror that I felt the first day I walked into 109?

These questions were to haunt me for months. But I did not know at that time how close I was to the answer.