Throughout the entire journey it was necessary to keep a keen lookout for enemies, white and red. None were seen, perhaps because none would dare this almost impossible trail. At last, after two hours of sweating labor, Dell pulled Silver Heels to a halt under the brow of a steep hill. “Going to rest and breathe the bronks?” asked the scout. “Nary, pard,” answered Dell, with an easy return to the colloquialism of the West; “we’re close to the end of our trail, and that’s why we’re rounded up. Squaw Rock is just over the rise. I thought perhaps you might like to reconnoiter before we shacked down on the place.” “That’s the sensible thing to do, of course. Cayuse will look after the horses while you and I climb the slope.” Leaving the boy below with the mounts, the scout and the girl crawled up the sun-baked rise to the crest, and peered over. What the scout saw was a circular, cactus-covered plain. In the midst of the plain arose a boulder about the size of a two-story house. But it was not the shape of a two-story house. On the contrary, from the angle at which the scout and the girl viewed it, the boulder had the contour of a woman’s head and shoulders, with the shoulders blanketed. To all seeming, the rock was the upper part of some gigantic statue, embedded in the sand from the shoulders down. In the shadow of the rock stood a horse, head down and listlessly panting with the heat. Closer to the base of the rock a man half sat and half reclined. He was smoking a pipe and gazing out across the plain. Evidently this was the man they wanted, and he was alone. The scout and the girl slipped downward on the slope for a hurried consultation. “The scoundrel is there, all right,” whispered Dell. “The question now is to capture him,” returned the scout. “He’s on the east side of the rock, and we’re to the north of it.” “We could rush him,” suggested Dell, “and have him covered before he could mount and ride away. Even if he did get on his horse, we could overhaul him.” “A better plan, I think,” said the scout, who hesitated to place Dell in the peril her plan would call for, “would be to take him by surprise. While he’s mooning down there, and looking across the desert; I’ll slip down the slope, crawl around the base of the rock, and have a bead drawn on him before he’ll know there’s any one else within a mile of him.” “If he should hear you getting down the slope he might shake a bullet out of his gun before you had a chance to fire first.” “He’d have to be quick, if he did. However, you can remain here and keep him covered.” “You’re taking all the risk,” demurred the girl. “It’s right I should.” Without debating the question further, Buffalo Bill regained the top of the hill, rolled over, and started downward on hands and knees. As he crawled, a foot at a time, he kept his eyes on the man at the foot of the rock. The fellow seemed completely absorbed in his reflections. He smoked languidly, like one half asleep.