Sunset Ranch: A Story of a Boy's Adventures in the West — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

SUNSET RANCH. CHAPTER I. THE TENDERFOOT. The western sun was hovering above the level horizon, as though loath to say his “good-night,” when a weary figure on foot, skirting a muddy “buf- falo wallow,” with a faint show of eager anticipa- tion, climbed the slight rise beyond, whence a sweeping view of the everlasting prairies might be obtained. A smooth-faced boy, the tired pilgrim appeared to be, whose rather showy corduroy garments, while fashioned somewhat on the ranger and hunter model, bespoke the Eastern tailor rather than the tough and well-seasoned garb of a prairie-roving “cow puncher,”’ with greasy leather overalls or — “chaps.” When he had “topped the rise” and cast one quick glance hither and yon, a groan of bitter disappointment broke from his dry lips, in spite of his apparent nerve. “That settles it—I’m lost, beyond a shadow of a doubt, and with a pretty good chance of spending my first night alone on the open prairie,” he said, dolefully. Somehow he shuddered at the prospect. The vast solitude surrounding him like an ocean, ap- peared so tremendous, so overpowering to one ac- customed. to city life, or, at most, a brief vacation CoOmicboo S CO