E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/c/) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 20712-h.htm or 20712-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/1/20712/20712-h/20712-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/1/20712/20712-h.zip) 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.