[Frontispiece: He gathered her in his arms, and bending low
carried her back into the darkened cavern.]

THE EMIGRANT TRAIL

BY

GERALDINE BONNER

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY
DUFFIELD & COMPANY

Published, April, 1910

CONTENTS

PART I

THE PRAIRIE

PART II

THE RIVER

PART III

THE MOUNTAINS

PART IV

THE DESERT

PART V

THE PROMISED LAND

THE EMIGRANT TRAIL

PART I

The Prairie

CHAPTER I

It had rained steadily for three days, the straight, relentless rain of early May on the Missouri frontier. The emigrants, whose hooded wagons had been rolling into Independence for the past month and whose tents gleamed through the spring foliage, lounged about in one another's camps cursing the weather and swapping bits of useful