The Duke of Chimney Butte: Western Novel

The Duke of Chimney Butte is a western novel by George W. Ogden. Ogden was a prolific author of western novels. He often used to do original research for his books and settings. Excerpt: Down through the Bad Lands the Little Missouri comes in long windings, white, from a distance, as a frozen river between the ash-gray hills. At its margin there are willows; on the small forelands, which flood in June when the mountain waters are released, cottonwoods grow, leaning toward the southwest like captives straining in their bonds, yearning in their way for the sun and winds of kinder latitudes. Rain comes to that land but seldom in the summer days; in winter the wind sweeps the snow into rocky canons; buttes, with tops leveled by the drift of the old, earth-making days, break the weary repetition of hill beyond hill…