Sunset Ranch: A Story of a Boy's Adventures in the West — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

30 Chased by a Prairie Fire being realized, the air seemed bracing and all Na- ture joyous. Soon he would see, and perhaps join in the many sports and labors of these wild “prairie skimmers,” whose home is upon the back of a buck- ing broncho, and who welcome danger for the in- toxication it brings to the nervous system. How good it felt to handle his Winchester again, and what vows he made to utilize 1t upon every oc- casion whenever a gray wolf was concerned, for somehow the chivalrous spirit of his ancestors seemed to have been humbled in the dust by the affair of the lone camp, and he could never see one o. those animals without an ardent desire to wipe out the insult. | Karl bore away toward the region where the ranch. upon which he was employed was situated; they would have to do good time if they hoped to reach it by sundown. But these prairie steeds are capable of covering an incredible number of miles within a limited time, and their course was as straight as the crow flies. To a child of the prairie all signs are as plain print, and Cuthbert was as deeply interested in and lost in admiration of the marvelous manner in which Karl could tell in a twinkling just how long a time had elapsed since antelope made a trail the boys dis- covered, as Karl, on his part, was filled with awe and envy over the knowledge his young college friend showed of books and the wide world. It began to appear as though fortune had brought | them together in this strange manner in order that they might be useful to each other. The acquaintance had begun under such peculiar and trying conditions that it had already passed the preliminary stage and was advancing with leaps and bounds to a closer relation that would make them chums. | Each discovered in the other certain elements to conniclooolks CO