Trail's End

Ogden George W.

English

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This is approximatly the first 1,000 words of Trail's End







TRAIL'S END

by

G. W. OGDEN

Author of
The Duke of Chimney Butte,
The Flockmaster of Poison Creek,
The Land of Last Chance, Etc.

Frontispiece by P. V. E. Ivory







[Illustration: Morgan, grim as judgment, stood among the crowd of
wastrels and women of poisoned lips (Page 229)]


Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers New York
Made in the United States of America

Copyright
A. C. McClurg & Co.
1921
Published September, 1921
Copyrighted in Great Britain




CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I The Unconquered Land 1
II The Meat Hunter 11
III First Blood 23
IV The Optimist Explains 36
V Ascalon Awake 54
VI Riders of the Chisholm Trail 65
VII A Gentle Cowboy Joke 77
VIII The Atavism of a Man 87
IX News from Ascalon 101
X The Hour of Vengeance 111
XI The Penalty 124
XII In Place of a Regiment 141
XIII The Hand of the Law 157
XIV Some Fool With a Gun 165
XV Will His Luck Hold? 176
XVI The Meat Hunter Comes 187
XVII With Clean Hands 199
XVIII A Bondsman Breathes Easier 216
XIX The Curse of Blood 223
XX Unclean 234
XXI As One That Is Dead 241
XXII Whiners at the Funeral 245
XXIII Ascalon Curls Its Lip 259
XXIV Madness of the Winds 277
XXV A Summons at Sunrise 290
XXVI In the Square at Ascalon 299
XXVII Absolution 315
XXVIII Sunset 325





TRAIL'S END

CHAPTER I

THE UNCONQUERED LAND


Bones.

Bones of dead buffalo, bones of dead horses, bones of dead men. The
tribute exacted by the Kansas prairie: bones. A waste of bones, a
sepulcher that did not hide its bones, but spread them, exulting in its
treasures, to bleach and crumble under the stern sun upon its sterile
wastes. Bones of deserted houses, skeletons of men's hopes sketched in
the dimming furrows which the grasses were reclaiming for their own.

A land of desolation and defeat it seemed to the traveler, indeed, as he
followed the old trail along which the commerce of the illimitable West
once was borne. Although that highway had belonged to another
generation, and years had passed since an ox train toiled over it on its
creeping journey toward distant Santa Fé, the ruts of old wheels were