In the Pecos Country, Edward Sylvester Ellis [paper ebook reader txt] 📗

or four feet in width. It had the appearance of having been caused by some convulsion of nature, and it extended at right angles to the course he was pursuing, beyond the limit of his vision. If necessary, it could be leaped over, but the explorer deemed it unwise to do so just then.

Now that he had the means at command, Fred decided to look after the cascade, the sound of which was a guide. His gun was irrevocably gone, and his progress, therefore, became the more tedious. Disliking to creep, he adopted the plan of advancing one step, and then groping around awhile with the other foot, before trusting his weight upon it. This consumed considerable time, but it was the only safe course, after what had taken place, and he kept it up until the musical murmur of the waterfall showed that he had approached about as close as possible.

He then struck another match and held it over his head. It told the whole story.

A stream, not more than three or four feet in width, issued from the darkness, and, flowing some distance, went over a ledge of rock. After falling three or four yards, upon some black and jagged rocks, it gathered itself together and resumed its journey into and through the gloom. The tiny flame was unequal to the task of showing where the water entered and left the cave, and, as the boy was straining his eyesight in the hope of discovering something more, the blaze scorched his fingers, he snapped it out.

“That leaves only four,” he mused, as he felt of the lucifers, “and I haven't got enough to spare. I can't gain much by using them that way, and so I guess I'll hold on to these, and see whether the daylight is going to help me.”

He picked his way carefully along until he was nearly beneath the opening which had admitted him, where he sat down upon the dry, sandy ground to await the light of the sun.

“I don't suppose it will help much, for the bushes up there will keep out pretty much of the sunlight that might have come through; but I guess I'll have plenty time to wait, and that's what I'll do.”

He fell into a sort of doze, lulled by the music of the cascade, which lasted until the night was over. As soon as he awoke, he looked upward to see how matters stood.

The additional light showed that the day had come, but it produced no perceptible effect upon the interior of the cave. All was as dark—that is, upon the bottom—as ever. It was only in the upper portion that there was a faint lighting-up.

Fred could see the jagged edges of the opening, with some of the bushes bent over, and seemingly ready to drop down, with the dirt and gravel clinging to their roots. The opening was irregular, and some four or five feet in extent, and, as near as he could estimate, was some thirty feet above his head.

“If I happened to come down on a rock, I might have got hurt; but things down here were fixed to catch me, and it begins to look as though they were fixed to hold me, too.”

His situation was certainly very serious. He had no gun or weapons of any kind other than a common jack-knife, and it looked very much as if there was no way for him to get out the cave again without outside assistance, of which the prospect was exceedingly remote.

He was hungry, and without the means of obtaining food.

The berries, which had acted so queerly with him the day before, were beyond his reach.

Vegetation needs the sunlight, as do all of us, and it is useless to expect anything edible below.

“Unless it's fish,” thought Fred, aloud. “I've heard that they find them in the Mammoth Cave without eyes, and there may be some of the same kind here; but then I'm just the same as a boy without eyes, and how am I going to find them?”

The more he reflected upon his situation, the more disheartened did he become. He had been given many remarkable deliverances in the past few days, and although his faith was strong that Providence would bring him out of this last predicament, his heart misgave him as he considered it in all its bearings.

“The best thing I can do is to try and gather some wood together, and start a fire. If there is enough fuel, I may kindle a lantern that will show me something in the way of a new door—Halloa! what is the matter?”

His attention was attracted by the rattling of gravel and dirt at his side, and looking up, he saw that something was struggling in the opening above, having been caught apparently in precisely the same manner as he had been.

His first supposition was that it was a wild animal, but the next moment he observed that it was a person, most probably an Apache warrior. And by the time Fred had learned that much, down came his visitor.