The Sunset Trail Read online

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  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 theirsequence, to fix in types a phase of American existence that, within thetouch of present time, has passed away. The West has witnessed morechanges than has the East. The common impression, and one to which allAmericans are bred, leaves paleface Western occupation to a modern day.Whenever one's thought wanders to what is old in this country oneinevitably sets his face towards the East.

  None the less, this feeling of an Eastern as an earlier settlement iserror. In New Mexico and Arizona, while exploring an ancient Spanishchurch or considering some palace of sun-dried mud with asixteenth-century origin, it will begin to press upon one how the East,after all, is but the younger theatre of European endeavour in thiscontinent. Also, an odd feeling will grow, as one reflects that morethan a half century before Winthrop and Standish and Bradford and Aldenand those other stern and solemn ones, came ashore on Plymouth Rock,Santa Fe was a bustling capital--a centre of agriculture, of mining, offlocks and of herds.

  St. Augustine is said to be the first founded town within the frontiersof this country, as the same are made and laid to-day. And yet it is inwarm dispute, with a deal to tell on the New Mexican side of thequestion, if Santa Fe be not the age equal of her sister of theEverglades. Certainly, and say the most disappointing thing for SantaFe, there was a no greater space than two or three years to fallbetween.

  Considered as regions, Florida versus New Mexico, the latter should bethe older. In its settlement, that stretch lying between Santa Fe andSan Francisco, and south to the Rio Grande and the now North Mexicanline, was in a fairly populous and flourishing condition three centuriesand more ago. To say "New Mexico" or "Arizona" hath a far-off savagesound, and yet both were dominated of European influences andpolka-dotted with many a white man's town long years before Salem wenthanging her witches or Pocahontas interfered to save the life of Smith.It was over three and one-half centuries ago that Coronado ransackedColorado and Kansas for those "seven cities" and the gold he could notfind.

  In 1803 the first American trading expedition broke across the plainsand entered Santa Fe. The expedition was planned by William Morrison,the grandfather of that Colonel William Morrison who, following CivilWar, won fame as a House leader, and proposed to reform the tariff byhorizontally reducing it. Until the Morrison trade invasion of NewMexico, the West in its European complexion had been furnished by theSpanish. Also, about this time the English and Scotch, with the CanadianFrench to aid them, came pushing southward and westward from BritishColumbia in a search for furs.

  The fur trade grew apace. Beavers were first the purpose, thenbuffaloes, with such peltry folk as bears and wolves and foxes andotters and muskrats to be their incident. For fifty years the beaver wasthe great source of Western wealth; then came the buffalo to roundlycover twenty-five years. After that, the cattle; to be followed by therailway and the farm.

  If one were to catalogue those human influences that have dealt with theWest, the count in its procession would run somewhat like this: Therewas the Indian occupation--an occupation that has never wholly given way.In the sixteenth century, say in 1550, came the Spaniard with what wecall "civilisation" and the Indians call "devilry," to colour thecontrol, and hold a West's directing rein, for two hundred andseventy-five years. Then befell the English-speaking invasion from thesunrise side of the Mississippi. There was a beaver day, a buffalo day;and, covering both the beaver and the buffalo days, there was also atrader day, with its Santa Fe and Oregon trails.

  On the heels of all these came the cattle day and the day of the herds,with the farm day slowly dawning. It is with that latter day, the cattleday, that I have dealt. In doing this I have seized on a real man and,in its tragedy at least, told what really happened. Speaking for itsbroader lines, this book is true, and there be scores who will recogniseits incidents.

  Alfred Henry Lewis. New York City, February, 1905.