Sunset Ranch: A Story of a Boy's Adventures in the West — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

18 The Tenderfoot. Cuthbert was not puzzled to account for his actions since he saw that Karl slapped with his hat at little spouts of flame that had begun to flash up amid the clumps of prairie grass, where the last blazing ember thrown at the gaunt leader of the wolf horde had lodged. Grasping the situation, the boy from the East joined Karl in his impromptu dance, and between the two the incipient conflagration was finally subdued. “Phew!” gasped the range rider as victory finally perched upon their standard; “‘you came near start- ing a racket that would ha’ played the very old Dickens.” “Would it have been very serious?’ asked Cuth- bert. “Well, when you’ve seen one or two prairie fires [I reckon you'll be careful how you open the ball. But then I forgot; you had your life at stake.” “It’s a pretty good thing we stamped it out then.” “Yes, sirree; we jest caught the blaze in time— with this wind and dry grass it would have gone off with a roar. To tell the truth, ’m not too fond of such a thing myself—you see I lost all my hair and part of my hide in one a year or two back, and can’t forget it.” He spoke as Bre with a fund of experience to draw upon, and Cuthbert being only a greenhorn, found himself lost in admiration of such a bold, and, in his mind, romantic character. Not that any evidence of pomp or pride could be seen about Karl, who, while sturdy and self-pos- sessed, appeared to be just what he was, a genuine, whole-souled, impulsive boy, able to accomplish quite a few things in keeping with his bold calling, yet liable to make mistakes which he would frankly own up to. They sat down together by the fire, and Karl pro- ducing some food from the bag at his saddle, the comiclooolkks.c©