The phantom tracker; or, The prisoner of the hill cave

BY FREDERICK DEWEY, AUTHOR OF “THE DOG TRAILER,” “WILL-O’-THE WISP,” ETC.
NEW YORK: BEADLE AND ADAMS, PUBLISHERS, 98 WILLIAM STREET.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by FRANK STARR & CO., In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
THE CAVE-HUNTER AND THE SHADOW.
It was a sultry, scorching day, on the banks of the river Gila—very sultry and silent. The sun in the zenith looked whitely down, and the yellow banks reflected its rays fiercely on the sluggishly-creeping, warm river. Away over the flat, glistening plain reigned the utmost silence. As far as the eye could reach it saw nothing—only dead level, dead heat, and dead silence. Here, mile upon mile from civilization, hundreds of miles away from any habitation, this vast wilderness stretched away—always level, always hazy, always silent—a spectral land.
A large catfish lazily rolled and tumbled on the surface of the river, too hot to swim, and too stupid to move—lying there, he only, at times, waved his fins and tumbled gently. A vulture sat on a sand-crag just above him—a water-vulture, or, rather, a brown, dirty fish-hawk. He was lazily watching his chance to swoop suddenly down upon the fish, and carry him off in his talons. But it was too hot to undergo any useless exertion, so he watched and waited for a sure chance, pluming himself moodily.
A panting coyote sat on his house at a little distance, watching the pair, and vaguely conscious that he was very hungry; a mule-rabbit under an adjacent tiny shrub tremblingly watched the coyote, starting violently at the slightest movement of the latter; and a huge yellow serpent, long and supple, dragged his scaly body up the bluff toward the rabbit.
The sun shone redly down now, leaving its white appearance for a sanguinary and blood-red hue; a haze was brewing.
Suddenly the quiet was disturbed. The coyote sneaked away, with his bristly chin upon his lank shoulder; this alarmed the rabbit, and he, too, fled, making the most gigantic leaps; in ten seconds he had disappeared. The snake’s eyes flashed in enraged disappointment, and hissing spitefully, he raised his head to discover the cause of the hasty flight.