Sunset Ranch: A Story of a Boy's Adventures in the West — page 242: what you’re looking at

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

230 The Raid on the Bad Lands. Little Buckshot pointed to clouds that were roll- ing up from the horizon. “Mebbe heap rain; we get wet; no care if bad white men keep in tepee. Good. You come, Karl; soon see how corral made. We make much s’prise, when let horses go, sometime p’raps.” That was how the dusky aborigine put it directly. Like all of his race he was sparing of his words, and always hewed close to the line. - Karl understood it well enough. What was a ducking to a cowboy, if the rain promised to make their task easier and lessened the chances of discovery? By the time they reached the vicinity of the set- tlement the moon was obscured, and a state of semi-darkness fell upon the land. Thus it was well they had made a careful survey of the place while the opportunity lasted, since it might prove to their advantage now. The corral was partly natural, though human hands had heaped up one line of great rocks that shut the animals in. Daily they had to be taken to pasturage in some nearby oasis in this desert. The gate was a sturdy, though rude affair, and was never kept locked in any way, as not a soul ever dreamed of danger menacing their live stock here. After a thorough examination, the boys were sat- isfied they could accomplish the task of turning the horses out; it would only require an hour’s work to remove that portion of the wall most distant from the settlement, through which breach the stampede could be effected. As yet the rain had not descended, and, feeling that they could do no more in this quarter until the coming of another night, they decided to withdraw quietly. They had no particular anxiety in connection with cConniclooOokks.€©