Sunset Ranch: A Story of a Boy's Adventures in the West — page 154: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XI. TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. After all there was some sort of peculiar fascina- tion and charm about this wild life Cuthbert led when among the Sioux. It seemed to appeal to an element in his nature that must have descended from remote ancestors. He was fond of the picturesque, and the Indian village, at the hour when the evening meal was being prepared, certainly presented a peculiar scene, with the sparkling fires, the curling, drifting smoke, the gayly-garbed squaws bending low or flitting from lodge to lodge, the gamboling papooses, lads at play, warriors stalking gravely about or smoking se- renely beside their tepee, curs barking or rushing hither and yon in packs, and Indian ponies in the stout corral. Yes, he would remember it all during the remain- der of his life. But all this did not make him change the resolu- tion he had taken. He yearned for the society of his kind. “This wild life may be all very well for a time,” he said to himself, and then he added, with a smile, “but then one really gets too much of a good thing.” His mind went back to many pleasant episodes in which Karl figured, wild chases over the flowery | prairie, the momentous night when Buckskin car- ried them both to safety, and the river, with the awful fire roaring behind—then once more he ex- perienced in imagination the chilly blast of the bliz- zard that so nearly terminated Little Buckshot’s life. It was always Karl who was in his mind—Karl, who seemed dearer to him than a brother. , CoOMmicH5Ooks.cO