Red Wing was calling loudly to some of his braves. Near him Lieutenant Barlow was shouting to the girl. Yet his voice showed that he did not know where she was. Ben Stevens had utterly subsided. “What next?” said Wild Bill. “We will have to work our way back from where we came, in the hope of finding her. If she is hurt, she is lying near the line of our flight. Can we follow it back in the darkness?” “We can try,” said Wild Bill. They turned their horses about. “Too bad that this happened,” said Wild Bill, “just when we had the thing cinched. She may have been hurt, struck by a bullet or an arrow, or may have been badly hurt by her fall.” They rode slowly back over the way they had come, trying hard to keep to the direct line of their flight. Soon they saw some of the Cheyennes, dimly in the darkness; and then they were almost in the midst of them. One who rode close to Buffalo Bill shouted to him. “What was it?” he asked. The scout answered promptly, in Cheyenne: “I know not. It may have been some of the spirits of the Moonlight Mountains.” Indians are proverbially afraid of spirits; and, in the darkness, their superstitions are sometimes easily excited. The Moonlight Mountains were near, and mountains are by many Indians, particularly plains Indians, supposed to be filled with strange spirits, or ghosts. The Cheyenne who had called to the scout mumbled something; and the scout knew his words had made an impression. Wild Bill bent low on his saddle, and rode bare-headed; for he had no blanket with which to disguise himself, to make him look like an Indian. As they thus rode slowly along, at intervals the scouts slid to the ground, and felt about in the gloom, calling to the girl in low voices. This was safe enough, for the Cheyennes were making a horrible babel with their yelling and questioning of each other. But the girl could not be found; Barlow had subsided; and when the scouts had gone as far as they believed was necessary, and saw before them the gleaming embers of the camp fires, they were ready to confess themselves baffled. “We’ll go back over the same way, and spread apart a little. We must make a thorough search,” said Buffalo Bill. They returned along the line of their search, dismounting more frequently, and making a more complete hunt; but the result was the same as before. The Cheyennes were now bunching not far off, and were yelling and calling, to summon all the members of the band. “I’m afraid they have captured her again,” said Buffalo Bill reluctantly. “We might edge closer in and see,” Wild Bill suggested. “I’ll do so; it will be safer for me. You hang around out here. I’ll join you soon. I must see if the girl is there.” Wild Bill did not like to be separated from his pard, but he saw the wisdom of the proposal. Poor as the light was, the Indians, with their keen eyes, were likely to spot him as a white man, if he came too near them.