Sunset Ranch: A Story of a Boy's Adventures in the West — page 184: what you’re looking at

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

172 Bravo! Buckskin. proud will failed to enthuse his muscles, and then, yard by yard, those dusky pursuers would shorten the gap. What then? Cuthbert was but a boy; had it been Old Sile with that wonderful repeating rifle, the Sioux hunt- ing party might have gone back to their lodges in mourning, but the young Virginian had never mas- tered the art of successfully shooting from the back of a galloping horse, especially when the quarry was in the rear. | He made one attempt, hoping to at least demor- alize the enemy; but, to his disgust, each and every man threw himself flat along his pony’s back, and derisive yells greeted his random shot. About this time the boy began to notice, to his dismay, that poor Buckskin was failing to hold his own. It was no sudden spurt on the part of those hard riders who whooped along in his rear, but a falling off in his own animal’s speed. Well, the crisis must soon come. How would he meet it? He had been so occupied by this dilemma and the endeavor to make some use of his gun that of late he failed to search for traces of others upon the swelling prairie. | It was, therefore, something in the nature of a - shock when to his ears was borne a faint, shouting chorus, How well he knew the cry! What familiar scenes it aroused in his mind. | Eagerly he looked to windward, for the cheering sound undoubtedly came from that quarter. | At first nothing met his eye but the vast expanse, bounded by the horizon. Then up from a depression came moving objects. | They were cowboys, waving hats and guns, and ConnicloOolkks.€©