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. CHAPTER XXVI. A WELCOME VISITOR Lonely as Fred Munson felt in that dismal cavern, he preferred the solitude to the companionship of an Apache Indian, and, fearful of discovery, he crouched down to wait until he should move away. His involuntary visitor dropped within a few feet of where he was hiding, and Fred tried to hold his breath for fear he might be detected; but the fellow quietly rose and gave expression to his sentiments.