Trail Smoke

Buck Surratt rode a long way through the desert in order to get to the Morgantown where hoped to find a job. Night before he will arrive into the town he spends the night on the ridge near the road, when he hears a gun shot from the nearby canyon to which he doesn't pay too much attention. However, as he enters the Morgantown next day looking for a job, Buck ends up being interrogated by the town officials about the mysterious shot. Unwilling to share details of his past the stranger becomes a suspect and make as many enemies as friends in a new town.

Ernest Haycox is among the most successful writers of American western fiction. He is credited for raising western fiction up from the pulp fiction into the mainstream. His works influenced other writers of western fiction to the point of no return. Fans of his work included Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway, and the latter once wrote, "I read The Saturday Evening Post whenever it has a serial by Ernest Haycox."