Sunset Ranch: A Story of a Boy's Adventures in the West — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

66 At the Sioux Camp. widened a trifle, the Indian, seeing the home stretch in front, thought he had surely won. He could not refrain from waving his hand ex- ultantly to his friends and giving vent to a yell of satisfaction. | There is an old saying to the effect that an In- dian should never shout until he is in the woods, nor a white man until out of them. So Little Buckshot counted without his host. Karl knew the crisis was upon him. It was win or lose. All depended upon the yellow nag. The cowboy’s best friend needed no plying of the stinging quirt’s lash—Karl and he were well ac- quainted, and Buckskin knew what was required of him when the rider bent low in the saddle and chir- ruped in his ear. Magnificently he responded. Foot by foot he avertook the big gray. Now they raced side by side and the goal just ahead—the young buck was frantically plying his whip, shrieking in anger and digging his moccasined heels into the steaming side of his noble steed. Alas! the big gray was at his limit. “Now, Buckskin, my beauty, show ’em what you can do,” whispered Karl, and Buckskin responded — nobly, shooting ahead and crossing the line so far in advance that there was a plain streak of daylight between the rival horses. | Evidently there could be no dispute as to the re- sult of that race. A roar of applause greeted Karl’s victory, and the cowboys thought it incumbent upon them to give a volley or two from their guns into the air. The Indians took their defeat philosophically, as was their wont—all but Little Buckshot, who scowled the hatred that filled his soul. Karl might have felt sorry for him, realizing the Connicloookks.€©