Sunset Ranch: A Story of a Boy's Adventures in the West — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

16 The Tenderfoot. Brown as an Indian, keen of eye and with an air of determination about him that gave much promise of future manhood, the newcomer charmed the ten- derfoot, whose ambition it was to mount the dizzy heights attained by this youngster with such appar- ent ease. Seeing that the other had, to all appearances, come out of the scrape with little harm beyond a torn coat and a few scratches, the rider on the buck- skin horse indulged in a hearty boyish laugh. Doubtless to him the ludicrous side of the adven- ture loomed up, but poor Cuthbert had passed through such a fearful experience that he was more or less rattled, and while he grinned in sympathy, it was more because he felt under heavy obligations to this new friend than in a humor to join in his mer- riment. “That was a pretty close call, stranger,” sang out the angel who had delivered him from so terrible a ~ fate. “And you came just in the nick of time. I want to thank you “Oh! bother all that! This is what we call high fun out here. I’m never happier than when knock- ing over a few of them gray critters on the jump.” Cuthbert himself believed he would be of the same mind in the future, since those skulkers had given him a scare he was not apt to forget in years. “You wonder who I am and how I happen to be camped here without horse or weapons, so let me explain,” he hastened to say, interpreting the curi- ous glance the other cast about the lone camp under the cottonwoods. It was quickly told, and in such a frank, engaging manner, not sparing himself for his blunders, that si lad on the buckskin horse was quite taken with im. , He held out a hand impulsively, the same that had comiclboolkks.€©