[Illustration: The Crack of the Winchester.] THE SUNSET TRAIL By ALFRED HENRY LEWIS Author of “The Boss,” “The President,” “Wolfville Days,” “Black Lion Inn,” “Peggy O’Neal,” etc. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS A. L. BURT COMPANY, Publishers New York Copyright. 1905 BY A. S. BARNES & CO. Published April, 1905 Second Printing July, 1905 Third Printing January, 1906 Fourth Printing July, 1906 To William Barclay Masterson This Volume Is Inscribed By His Friend The Author CONTENTS CHAPTER I—HOW IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT CHAPTER II—THAT TRANSACTION IN PONIES CHAPTER III—INEZ OF THE ’DOBE WALLS CHAPTER IV—THE WILD ROSE OF THE CANADIAN CHAPTER V—THE STRATEGY OF MR. MASTERSON CHAPTER VI—THE FATAL GRATITUDE OF MR. KELLY CHAPTER VII—WHY THE WEEKLY PLANET DIED CHAPTER VIII—AN INVASION OF DODGE CHAPTER IX—THE MEDICINE OF LONE WOLF CHAPTER X—THE INTUITIONS OF MR. ALLISON CHAPTER XI—HOW TRUE LOVE RAN IN DODGE CHAPTER XII—DIPLOMACY IN DODGE CHAPTER XIII—THE RESCUE OF CIMARRON BILL CHAPTER XIV—THE WORRIES OF MR. HOLIDAY CHAPTER XV—HOW MR. HICKOK WENT INTO CHEYENNE CHAPTER XVI—THE LAST VISIT TO DODGE INTRODUCTION. It was in my thoughts, as I wrote these chapters and arranged their sequence, to fix in types a phase of American existence that, within the touch of present time, has passed away. The West has witnessed more changes than has the East. The common impression, and one to which all Americans are bred, leaves paleface Western occupation to a modern day. Whenever one’s thought wanders to what is old in this country one inevitably sets his face towards the East. None the less, this feeling of an Eastern as an earlier settlement is error. In New Mexico and Arizona, while exploring an ancient Spanish church or considering some palace of sun-dried mud with a sixteenth-century origin, it will begin to press upon one how the East, after all, is but the younger theatre of European endeavour in this continent. Also, an odd feeling will grow, as one reflects that more than a half century before Winthrop and Standish and Bradford and Alden and those other stern and solemn ones, came ashore on Plymouth Rock, Santa Fé was a bustling capital—a centre of agriculture, of mining, of flocks and of herds. St. Augustine is said to be the first founded town within the frontiers of this country, as the same are made and laid to-day. And yet it is in warm dispute, with a deal to tell on the New Mexican side of the question, if Santa Fé be not the age equal of her sister of the Everglades. Certainly, and say the most disappointing thing for Santa Fé, there was a no greater space than two or three years to fall between.