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. Buffalo Bill ducked behind the screen of the mesquite bushes, and he was glad he had taken the precaution to conceal his horse. For there, two or three miles away, was a band of mounted Indians. The sun glistened on the tips of their spears and tomahawks, and glittered on their gun barrels. Feathers floated from the manes and tails of their ponies, and feathers floated from the plumed headgear of the warriors. The scout unslung the field glass he usually carried, and leveled it, lying again prone in the grass and looking out from behind the mesquite. The powerful glass drew the Indians well within range of his eyes. “Yes, Cheyennes,” he said, “and young bucks from the reservation; and they’ve got Hickok, more’s the pity! Those young rascals are out for scalps and plunder. When they get ‘good’ again, they’ll hurry back to the reservation, slip in some dark night, and swear that they have never been away from it a minute.” Wild Bill rode upright and seemed not to be seriously hurt, as Buffalo Bill was glad to observe. Buffalo Bill even fancied that with the glass he could see the proud and defiant look that he knew was on the face of Wild Bill. The Cheyennes saw neither Buffalo Bill nor his horse.