Sunset Ranch: A Story of a Boy's Adventures in the West — page 114: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

106 Horse Thieves. “Ts it wolves?’ The question occurred to him without any of that old-time tremor that the very sound of the word produced. These “pesky varmints,” as Old Sile always termed them, had of late given more or less trouble, but their audacity had been severely punished, and, be- sides, the horses had never appeared so uneasy when these skulkers hung around the feeding ground— such prairie steeds early learn how to plant a pair _ of good hoofs just where they will do the most good, and woe to the carrion-feeder that incautiously comes within reach, What then? “T guess it must be horse thieves hanging about,” said Cuthbert, hesitatingly. Cowboy ponies seem to become imbued with some of the instincts that animate their masters, and among other traits hatred for the red men easily takes possession of their faculties. “Tt—might—be—Indians,”’ he muttered, slowly. This time a quiver ran through Cuthbert’s frame. Perhaps it was in part alarm, for the boy had only once been under fire, at the time the cattle thieves were stopped in their game; but he came of sterling stock, and, setting his teeth, resolved to keep con- stantly on the watch, ready to take a hand in the . game should the thieving sons of the prairie attempt to run the horses off. With possible danger hovering near, the noises of the night which had erstwhile sounded so sooth- ing appeared to assume an entirely different aspect. Even the crooning night wind, murmuring through the grasses on the little rise beyond, was suggestive of muttered voices, while the hoot of an owl in the gopher village to the west had all the necessary qualifications of just such a signal as Indians are wont to exchange. Conniclooockks.€©