The butte on which the girl stood seemed above its surroundings and alone. Not a wrinkle on the surface about it showed at that distance, but far beyond could be seen the sheen of a river, with bushes and little bunches of timber along its banks.
“Mebbe she’s a angel, but I didn’t notice any wings,” mused Nomad, staring in that direction, although with the naked eye he failed to see the picture on the bluff.
“Yah, yah! Ah reckons she mus’ hab wings, ter hab flewed so high to roost,” remarked Skibo.
“Probably the other side of the butte is scalable,” observed Wild Bill, “but if a maiden is lost or hiding from Indians, we ought to rescue her.”
“That is right, Hickok,” said the scout, “but——” He hesitated. Buffalo Bill was thinking of the mirage of the morning. There was the butte of the same contour as the one mirrored in the sky. The crevice did not show, but he believed it would be visible, on nearer approach.
“But what, Buffler?” asked Nomad.
“I think we have discovered all we shall of this mystery unless we spend a lot of time on it,” quietly answered the scout.
“That is just what I was thinking,” said Wild Bill.
“Ye don’t think this hyar kentry is muy malo, do ye?” queried Nomad.
“No, Nomad; I think the country is all right, but I’ll wager that there is some deep mystery in this case of a girl on the apex of a pinnacle in the middle of the wildest country in the Northwest.