Sunset Ranch: A Story of a Boy's Adventures in the West — page 39: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER III. WILD LIFE ON THE RANCH. Many were the novel experiences in store for young Lee upon the great cattle ranch—never a day went by that he failed to learn some new trick con- nected with the wonderful prairie life. Work there was in plenty, and be it said to his credit he did not shun it as many boys would have done; but there were also hours of recreation, made more enjoyable by the labor with which they had been preceded. His soul, long cramped, cribbed and confined within the walls of college and metropolis, seemed to expand beneath this genial Dakota sky, and he even found a strange pleasure in standing watch over the horses when serving his time as Kelly’s night wrangler. The star-studded sky, the whispering winds, the perfume of flowers and the sense of solitude com- bined to make a grandeur that gave him satisfaction beyond expression. And there was danger, too. Wolves hovered around when he watched the sheep with their many tender lambs, and the utmost vigilance was required on the part of the herder to discover and slay these cunning wanderers. By degrees he learned, under the guidance of Karl, how to detect any uneasiness among his keen- scented charges, and about where to look for trouble. Probably the Virginia lad never in all his past life experienced more savage joy than came to him one night when watching a bunch of sheep that had been inclosed in a rope corral and left to his charge. Comilcooo CS C©