Sunset Ranch: A Story of a Boy's Adventures in the West — page 263: what you’re looking at

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

Sunset Ranch. 251 tlement was boiling and a lot of furious rustlers would speedily be surrounding the corral, prevent- ing his escape. Be that as it may, a few horses managed to turn and gallop back toward the gate, though the main body pushed through the fracture in the wall and went careering madly over the alkali desert beyond. When the Sioux boy darted after the last of them, he was observed by several running men, who took snap-shots at the shadowy figure; but it is no easy task to hit such a flitting, bounding target, seen in the fitful glow of the moonlight, and the dusky stampeder escaped scot free. He was not immediately pursued, because the idea prevailed that a big force of Indians might be in the vicinity, and these cautious outcasts from society knew enough of the Sioux character to suspect an ambush might await such a hazardous rush. Karl had believed he knew the way to where the horses had been left most thoroughly, but somehow conditions seemed to change the appearance of the country, and several times he was within an ace of losing himself. . This sort of a thing would never do. It meant ruin to all their plans, the recapture of Polly, and a worse fate for himself, if, through ill luck, he fell into the outcasts’ hands. He must brace up, take a new hold and not get off has base again. By degrees he had been leaving the still stormy settlement far in the lurch, and had reason to be- lieve he must be near the secret little inclosure where Buckskin and the Indian pony had been pock- eted. There was one thing Karl forgot. The videttes. Little Buckshot had declared that the members of this outlaw community always kept at least one sen- Comiclboooks C©