Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net THE TRAIL TO YESTERDAY [Illustration: "IF YOU WANT THE PARSON TO DIE, DON'T LOOK AT ME WHEN HE STEPS IN."] THE TRAIL TO YESTERDAY By Charles Alden Seltzer Author of "The Two-Gun Man," "The Coming of the Law," Etc. With Three Illustrations A. L. BURT COMPANY PUBLISHERS--NEW YORK Copyright, 1913, by OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY All rights reserved CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. A Woman on the Trail 11 II. The Dim Trail 40 III. Converging Trails 53 IV. This Picture and That 72 V. Dakota Evens a Score 88 VI. Kindred Spirits 111 VII. Bogged Down 121 VIII. Sheila Fans a Flame 146 IX. Strictly Business 163 X. Duncan Adds Two and Two 196 XI. A Parting and a Visit 215 XII. A Meeting on the River Trail 233 XIII. The Shot in the Back 254 XIV. Langford Lays Off the Mask 275 XV. The Parting on the River Trail 303 XVI. Sheriff Allen Takes a Hand 310 XVII. Doubler Talks 323 XVIII. For Dakota 336 XIX. Some Memories 344 XX. Into the Unknown 359 ILLUSTRATIONS "If you want the parson to die, don't look at me when he steps in." Frontispiece "Won't you please get us out of this?" 134 Duncan grasped for his pistol, but the hand holding it was stamped violently into the earth. 161 THE TRAIL TO YESTERDAY CHAPTER I A WOMAN ON THE TRAIL Many disquieting thoughts oppressed Miss Sheila Langford as she halted her pony on the crest of a slight rise and swept the desolate and slumberous world with an anxious glance. Quite the most appalling of these thoughts developed from a realization of the fact that she had lost the trail. The whole categorical array of inconveniences incidental to traveling in a new, unsettled country paled into insignificance when she considered this horrifying and entirely unromantic fact. She was lost; she had strayed from the trail, she was alone and night was coming. She would not have cared so much about the darkness, for she had never been a coward, and had conditions been normal she would have asked nothing better than a rapid gallop over the dim plains. But as she drew her pony up on the crest of the rise a rumble of thunder reached her ears. Of course it would rain, now that she had lost the trail, she decided, yielding to a sudden, bitter anger. It usually did rain when one was abroad without prospect of shelter; it always rained when one was lost.