WONDERFUL MIRROR OF THE PLAIN.
“Buffler, what d’ye make out o’ thet mirrij?”
Old Nomad had aroused the scout very early to look at the sky, which
reflected the plain for miles.
The pards had camped the previous evening in a basin in the broken clay
of the Bad Lands where the rains had formed a miniature lake, around
which grass had started up luxuriantly. The place resembled an immense
“buffalo wallow” and had all the appurtenances in the way of “buffalo
flies” which at first threatened to drive the thin-haired horses into
a stampede, when the party first arrived late in the afternoon. But a
flock of starlings came soon after and, alighting on the horses, soon
put the flies to rout.
Cayuse had stumbled upon the place in the afternoon and it was decided
to remain where there was good grazing and plenty of water, although
the latter was not an attractive quality.
Hidden from the surrounding country, with the breeze sweeping across
the pool, after the sun went down the pards found it to be a delightful
camping ground.
They slept soundly, and although two-hour watches placed each, with
the exception of Tootsie, on guard during the night, not the slightest
cause for alarm was discovered.
It was old Nomad’s morning watch and he had finally awakened Buffalo
Bill to study a beautifully clear mirage, which depicted a scene that
puzzled the trapper.
The young reader may not know that the phenomenon referred to is
extremely common in some localities, and due to atmospheric conditions.
It is usually caused by a diminution of the density of the air near
the surface of the earth, often produced by the radiation of heat,
the denser stratum being thus above instead of below the rarer, which
latter is the usual case. Now, rays of light from a distant object,
situated in the denser medium--that is, a little above the earth’s
level--coming in a direction nearly parallel to the earth’s surface,
meet the rarer medium at a very obtuse angle, and instead of passing
into it, they are reflected back to the dense medium, thus acting as a
mirror.
The image produced by the reflected rays will appear inverted, and
below the real object, just as an image reflected in the water appears
when observed from a distance. The phenomena are frequently much more
strange and complicated, the images being often much distorted and
magnified, and in some instances occurring at a considerable distance
from the object, as in case of a church seen over the sea or an
inverted vessel sailing over the land. If the object is a cloud, or
portion of sky, it will appear by the reflected rays as lying on the
surface of the earth and bearing a strong resemblance to a sheet of
water; also, as the reflecting surface is irregular, and constantly
varies in position, owing to the constant communication of heat to the
upper stratum, the reflected image will be constantly varying, and will
present the appearance of a water surface ruffled by the wind.
Thus in the deserts of lower Egypt, Persia, Turkestan, and on the
great Western plains of the United States, whole caravans have been
led from the trail by thirst toward an inviting lake which appears to
be but a few miles away. If the ground is favorable the mirage may be
dispelled as the observer advances, but in others it is like an ignis
fatuus, hovering ever in sight, but always beyond reach, until the
victim succumbs to thirst and his body is left a monument to his own
misunderstanding of one of nature’s most fascinating jokes.
Buffalo Bill came to the trapper’s side on the rim of the basin, where
Nomad pointed to the southwest. The sky looked a lead-colored haze that
held well down to the horizon, with a belt of clear blue underneath,
but nearer, and seeming a few miles away, was a tracery in the heavens,
apparently far below the clouds, of a vast map of the plain.
The buttes, and ravines, and gashes, the buffalo wallows, skulls, and
clusters of weeds, were laid out across the sky with a variation of
distinctness and color.
The distortions were surprising, the images coming suddenly nearer or
fading away in the distance. A little brook suddenly grew to a great
river and objects seemed to be moving on its surface.
But more surprising than all the rest was the mirrored outline of a
crack in the hard-baked surface of the plain. Reflected there in the
peculiar morning sky, the crevice looked to be several feet wide and
running for a long distance in a direction that allowed the smaller or
farther end to fade out and disappear in the distance, while the nearer
approached diagonally until it appeared scarcely half a mile away,
ending in the side of a strangely marked butte.
This latter, seen top down in the sky, appeared hollow, surrounded by a
high, square-topped wall. And the centre of the hollow reflected green.
Down the crevice toward the butte some object was moving. Sometimes
it came out clearly, enormously magnified by the variation of heat
radiation, and would seem about to be distinctly revealed in every
detail to the observer; then its brilliancy would fade.
On the whole, the moving object looked like some gigantic worm crawling
along the rut made by a narrow-rimmed wheel. The reflection gave no
detail below the ground level, because of a different layer of air
there, but moving along the centre of this outlined crevice was the
bobbing, disappearing, and reappearing object.
“Don’t that git yer guessworks clogged, Buffler?” said Nomad, after a
period of silent observation.
“It certainly is a puzzler; call the rest of the boys and see what they
think of it.”
Before the mirage had faded the pards had seen the crawling thing reach
the mirrored butte and disappear.
“That’s not in the direction we travel,” said Hickok, “but I move we go
out of our way a few miles to see if that picture was painted true.”
“I second ther motion,” said Nomad.
“It is moved and approved that we make a tour of investigation to
satisfy our own curiosity,” said Buffalo Bill. “If that be your minds
you will so vote.”
All raised their hands and answered “Ay.”
Breakfast was prepared and eaten and then the pards set off on a
mission of inquisitiveness which led to one of the strangest adventures
that ever befell either of the famous scouts.
While the mirrored picture of the gash and butte represented the scene
as not more than half a mile distant, after a ride of an hour the pards
had seen nothing that looked like it. They had hardly expected to find
the place much sooner and perhaps not at all, for, with the exception
of Tootsie, they were familiar with the false reports of nature’s news
sheet.
Another hour and they had paused on the crest of one of the great
prairie waves to study the surroundings, when Buffalo Bill, who was
using a field glass, uttered an exclamation of surprise.
The scout handed the glass to Wild Bill, who said:
“By gorry!”
Nomad reached for the glass and alter a moment’s study of a distant
butte, let loose with:
“Waal, by ther ring-tailed, rip-snortin’ heifercats! Wouldn’t thet make
ye swaller yer gum?”
It was Skibo’s turn, and after a moment the giant black man handed the
glass to Tootsie and turned to Buffalo Bill.
“Mars’ Billyum,” he said, “yer goin’ sabe de lil’ missy if it takes de
las’ piece ob meat f’m ole Skibo’s bones to do it--ain’t dat so, Mars’
Billyum?”
“She sees us and seems to think we are Indians, for she is running
along the top of the mesa and now she drops out of sight!” cried the
boy excitedly.
The cause of the exclamations by the scout and his pards was the sight
of a girl, or young woman, with long yellow hair floating in the
wind, standing on the top of a high, perpendicular-sided butte, and,
apparently, studying the landscape by peering under her hand.
The butte on which the girl stood seemed above its surroundings and
alone. Not a wrinkle on the surface about it showed at that distance,
but far beyond could be seen the sheen of a river, with bushes and
little bunches of timber along its banks.
“Mebbe she’s a angel, but I didn’t notice any wings,” mused Nomad,
staring in that direction, although with the naked eye he failed to see
the picture on the bluff.
“Yah, yah! Ah reckons she mus’ hab wings, ter hab flewed so high to
roost,” remarked Skibo.
“Probably the other side of the butte is scalable,” observed Wild Bill,
“but if a maiden is lost or hiding from Indians, we ought to rescue
her.”
“That is right, Hickok,” said the scout, “but----” He hesitated.
Buffalo Bill was thinking of the mirage of the morning. There was the
butte of the same contour as the one mirrored in the sky. The crevice
did not show, but he believed it would be visible, on nearer approach.
“But what, Buffler?” asked Nomad.
“I think we have discovered all we shall of this mystery unless we
spend a lot of time on it,” quietly answered the scout.
“That is just what I was thinking,” said Wild Bill.
“Ye don’t think this hyar kentry is _muy malo_, do ye?” queried Nomad.
“No, Nomad; I think the country is all right, but I’ll wager that there
is some deep mystery in this case of a girl on the apex of a pinnacle
in the middle of the wildest country in the Northwest.
“We will investigate as far as practicable at this time, and, if we do
not reach an explanation readily--as I do expect we shall--we must ride
on and attend to our duties first; then if we care to come back here to
unravel a mystery, that will be our privilege.”
“Righto!” chirped Wild Bill, “but suppose we toddle on the base of the
bluff and look around it? That will not occupy much time.”
They were obliged to advance more or less cautiously because of the
broken nature of the footing, seams and chasms running hither and
thither, like rivulets after a shower.
At last at the base of the isolated butte, which was much larger and
higher than it appeared from the distance, the pards found it to be a
precipitous wall of more than one hundred feet from base to top of the
main cone, and this was surrounded by a massive foot-piece more than
half as high and three times as broad.
By difficult climbing and jumping wide and deep crevices, they at last
attained the top of the base rock, which was as level as a house floor
and formed a plateau of probably two hundred acres. Out of the centre
of this arose the shaft first seen, towering scores of feet above them,
an apparently solid block of rock, smaller in circumference at the base
than at the top, as smooth and as impossible of ascent as the outer
surface of Bunker Hill monument.
It was on the top of this block, which was perhaps sixteen hundred feet
in circumference or five hundred feet in diameter, that they had seen a
human being.
“’Member what I said erbout angels?” asked Nomad, staring up dizzily at
the top, which seemed wavering against the sky.
“Mars’ Billyum, Ah reckons ’twouldn’t do no harm ’f Ah should jes’
holler a few words o’ United States so’s de lil’ missy won’t t’ink we’s
Injuns,” suggested Skibo.
“I think there is no need of it, Skibo,” answered the scout, who, with
head thrown back, had been studying the top of the rock.
As the scout spoke a hush fell over all the pards, for there had
suddenly appeared on the very edge of the pinnacle a girlish figure
quaintly dressed and looking down at them.
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.