Sunset Ranch: A Story of a Boy's Adventures in the West — page 133: what you’re looking at

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

The Sioux Village. 123 but upon noting the position of the moon back of the clouds he decided it must be not far from dawn. That was the shortest five hours Cuthbert ever ex- perienced. Now his apprenticeship as horse wrangler on a wet night came into good play. Rain had little terror for the Indians, accustomed to taking things as they came, the evil with the good, philosophically. | Cuthbert threw the old blanket over his shoulders, intending to ride bareback for a while, at least. It was a melancholy spectacle, the start they made under the dripping heavens, but only by grunts did these toughened riders evince any disgust—white men would have very probably given expression to their feelings by profanity. The morning broke gloomy enough. Still Cuthert could see that Standing Elk was de- lighted over the rain, and he figured out that the braves were willing to take their ducking, since this same downpour would utterly blot out their trail. To the prisoner, however, this consciousness only added to his gloom. That he was able to restrain his natural feeling of despair and imitate his captors in taciturn indiffer- ence was greatly to his credit. The rain eventually ceased, but their journey seemed to have no end. The sun came out and soon each man and horse was steaming. Cuthbert kept the course as well as the conditions allowed, for he fully expected sooner or later to come this way again, perhaps on faithful old Buck- skin, and it would be of great advantage to him to know in which direction the great cattle range lay. From words dropped now and then he learned that they would probably make the village on the COME DOO ‘iS C©