Haunted Trail — Max Overton

Ned Abernathy is a hot-tempered young cowboy in the small town of Hammond's Bluff in the Dakota Territories in 1876. In a drunken argument with his best friend Billy over a girl, he guns him down. He flees, and wanders the plains, forests and hills of the Dakota Territories, certain that every man's hand is against him. Horse rustlers, marauding Indians, killers, gold prospectors and French trappers cross his path and lead to complications, as do persistent apparitions of what Ned believes is the ghost of his friend Billy, come to accuse him of murder. He finds love and loses it, he finds gold in the Black Hills and must defend his new-found wealth against greedy men. Finally, he comes to terms with who he is and what he has done. Ned confronts the ghosts of his past and returns to Hammond's Bluff, where a shocking surprise awaits him at the end of the haunted trail.