“That proves that he wasn’t killed, and also shows that he was not so badly injured but that they thought they must tie him. Hickok forever! It’s hard to down you, old pard of mine!”
Buffalo Bill’s voice thrilled with the pride he felt in the ability and achievements of his old and true friend of the border.
“Yes, and they went in that direction. This is a body of a young Cheyenne buck, I judge, which is proof that they belong to the desperate young herd that broke away from the reservation. They are not returning to the reservation, though, but are heading toward the southwest. What does that mean? What is in that direction?”
He followed the trail, keen-eyed and wary, leading his horse by its bridle. He had no way of knowing but that Cheyennes, eager for his blood, awaited him in some grassy hollow, and would shoot him when he came in range, or jump out upon him unawares and tomahawk him. He was taking no more chances than he was forced to. Yet he kept straight on, dragging at the reins of his horse and keeping his eyes on the trail, spelling out its meaning as he advanced.
Looking ahead, he saw that the blue mirages were disappearing; the advance of the sun into the higher sky was driving them away.
“The Cheyennes will have me in sight soon, if they’re near; and they’re not so very far, that’s sure!”
He came to a hollow. Fortunately it was two or three feet deep, and before it grew some mesquite bushes.
He stopped in this hollow, and there picketed his horse with his lariat, driving an iron pin into the ground with his boot heel, and attaching to the pin the lariat end.
He had no more than done so when the blue mirage vanished.
It was a singular thing. A fog lifts or falls slowly, and does not disappear for some time. But this was almost uncanny in the quickness with which it disappeared. At one time the blue sea of the mirage lay before him, with the shimmery-heat appearance above its surface. Five minutes later it was not there. It had not gone anywhere—neither up nor down—but it simply was no more to be seen. Where that blue sea, or lake, had seemed to be, stretched now the level grasslands, just as in the earlier hours of the morning, when the rising sun shone on them, and the eye could penetrate now to the limits of the horizon.