The scout and Wild Bill doffed their sombreros and the former shouted:
“Can we be of service to you, young lady?”
“No, sir; I think not. I am as free as the air and the birds, and care not for the ways of the world or its people.”
“Are you alone?” he asked.
“Why should you ask? If I am happy and need nothing of the world, why should it care whether I am alone or not? The dark-skinned people of the plain respect my desires and call me, in their tongue, the daughter of the moon. I go and come as I wish among them. But the dark-skinned people hate the white-skinned people and hope to drive them into the sea. Even now I can see, far across the plain, a large party of mounted warriors who come this way. If my white-skinned brothers remain here they will be slain or taken prisoners.
“Go that way”—and she pointed to the south and east. “Two miles on you will find a river. Follow it far and keep well to the timber, for on both sides the country swarms with red brothers who are hostile to the white brothers. Go! and tell the white people who ask, that I am the mystery of the lone rock.”
She disappeared, and the scout and his pards turned away as she had directed, but not until Buffalo Bill had discovered the crevice which the mirage had revealed, leading from far away toward the river to the base of the butte. He mistrusted that some hidden entrance led under the bluff to the hollow interior which the inverted cone had shown.