The following morning the Chief and his daughter returned to the
village, and we proceeded on our journey.

That day, riding along on my crop-eared pony, about fifty yards
behind my companions, I chanced to look behind me and I saw what I
thought to be a man, walking on a hill towards us, and he appeared
to be at least twenty feet high. As he got further down the hill
he appeared to grow shorter, until, I thought, he went down a
ravine and out of sight.

I put spurs to Croppy and galloped up to Uncle Kit, and told him I
had seen the tallest man on earth, declaring that the man was at
least twenty feet high.

"An' you saw a man that high?" said Uncle Kit

"Indeed I did," I replied.

"Sure you saw him?" he asked.

"Yes, sir; and if you will watch you will see him come up out of
the ravine, directly."

Uncle Kit, laughing, said: "It was not a man you saw, my boy, but
a mirage," and he explained to me the phenomena, which I became
familiar with in the years that followed.

Sometimes the mirages present to the vision what appear to be men,
at other times bodies of water surrounded by trees, and often
houses and whole towns. They appear before you on the dryest