Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales

Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales (1899) by Charles B. Cory collects sixteen stories of adventure and the supernatural. The title story features a curiosity dealer describing his ill-fated expedition to Arizona cliff dwellings. Seeking specimens and relics, the dealer retrieves a child mummy from a cave fifty feet up a cliff face, having fashioned ladders from tent poles. When his Mexican assistant betrays him, severing the ladders and leaving him stranded to steal the wagon and goods, the dealer shoots the fleeing man from the cliff mouth, then fashions an escape rope from his clothing. Other tales include "The Tragedy of the White Tanks," "An Aztec Mummy," "An Interesting Ghost," "The Mound of Eternal Silence," "The Story of a Bad Indian," "The Voodoo Idol," and "The Elixir of Life"—primarily adventure and supernatural fiction set in the American West and tropics, combining exploration, ancient mysteries, and spectral occurrences.