Sunset Ranch: A Story of a Boy's Adventures in the West — page 30: what you’re looking at

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

24 Chased by a Prairie Fire. sure. So, there, steady, boy. Look sharp, comrade —behind me—quick !’ Fortunately the Virginia lad was a fair horseman —at least he had been considered such in his old home, though when he saw cowboys ride he knew he had much to learn. He scrambled up behind Karl, who had just coiled his rope on the saddle horn. “Hold tight to me—we’re off!’ shouted the latter. The buckskin horse shot away like the wind, and apparently unconscious as yet of the fact that he so gallantly bore a double burden, fear gave him addi- tional strength and that crackling roar in the rear served as no other goad would have done. Surely Cuthbert was having a speedy introduc- tion to the perils that menace the prairie traveler. At least he had never experienced a ride that bore any comparison with that mad gallop. It was with considerable difficulty he managed to maintain his seat, and he shuddered to think what the consequences must be should the horse break through into a gopher hole. Only the sagacity of Buckskin stood between them and a catastrophe. Karl maintained his coolness in the face of dan- ger, a characteristic that becomes second nature with cowboys, constantly finding themselves in tight places. He knew what course he had laid out and just | how much of a chance they had of escaping from the fiery terror that boomed along in pursuit. “I'd like to stop and look at it,” said Cuthbert, twisting his head around to see what the spectacle was like. There was a dreadful fascination about it he could not explain—the lurid heavens, the leaping flames, the clouds of smoke bearing myriads of fiery sparks which started miniature conflagrations in the comicloolks.c©