Sunset Ranch: A Story of a Boy's Adventures in the West — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

The Indian Foray. 51 prised rider, scrambling out from under, crawled away through the grass in the greatest imaginable haste. Immediately a savage shout went up from the other cattle thieves, and Cuthbert imagined they were about to charge headlong, but it seemed they had too much discretion for that, and began to draw off. Old Sile, having gotten his hand in, and taken quite a fancy to the new gun, thought he might as well keep the ball going, so he selected another vic- tim and brought the poor pony down with apparent ease, so that there was another badly-demoralized Sioux brave plunging through the grass in the ef- fort to escape possible doom. “Youngster, this is a good ’un,” said the vet- eran. Cuthbert’s Winchester had certainly won honors enough for one day, and the boy was proud of being the possessor of so reliable a shooting-iron— besides, ‘(Old Sile had put the stamp of approval on it and this was enough for him. This second disaster quite completed the discom- fiture of the young bucks, who, giving up their at- tack as a bad job, turned tail and galloped off. - Our friends immediately sprang into their sad- dles and started in hot pursuit, for the Indians must be driven entirely off if the prize cattle were to be saved. The two red herders had kept an anxious eye upon the trend of events even while they endeavored to urge their bunch of cattle to the west, frighten- ing them with shouts and waving arms; and when they saw their erstwhile valorous comrades in full retreat with the squad of cowboys bearing in their quarter as fast as horseflesh could carry them, a sudden remembrance of an engagement elsewhere COMGIOO S C©