Sunset Ranch: A Story of a Boy's Adventures in the West — page 173: what you’re looking at

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

Under the Waning Moon. 161 cricket, together with the shrill complaining of katy- dids in the brush, gave place to silence deep and profound. Thus the mighty king of day wheeled into view above the horizon. It was well. Cuthbert’s anxiety concerning the hunting party had not abated. The first use he made of daylight was to survey the country all around him. He had just reached that border where the rough foothills gradually softened into the rolling prairie. During the whole term of his captivity, he had not once clapped eyes on this latter, and was sur- prised to find how dear it had become to him since his peat among the cowboys, now two seasons back. It was like welcoming an old friend again, and seemed to speak in clarion tones of the proud liberty he had once enjoyed. | Why, it even seemed easier to breathe here than~ among those hills where the lodges of Standing Elk kept guard beside the ever-flowing Sweetwater. When he had dismounted in a depression, and hobbled Buckskin so the broncho might play no tricks common to his class upon him, Cuthbert topped the nearest rise, and took a good survey of the scene in every direction. He rejoiced to discover no signs of danger, for his weariness was such that only urgent necessity would have compelled him to go on. Then came a frugal repast. He had a supply of water in a canteen, secured through diplomacy from a young buck, who had taken it from one of Custer’s unlucky cavalrymen at the battle of the Little Big Horn. The ride of almost six consecutive hours had been wearisome, much more so because of his lack of Conniclooe® ‘S C©