The Stranger from Abilene

Epilogue

Cage Clayton returned to Kansas, where he reconciled with his father and prospered in the cattle business. He is credited with introducing Brahman cattle to the Kansas range.

He married in 1896 and had a large brood of towheaded kids.

Clayton died of influenza in 1930 at the age of eighty.

Nook Kelly died in 1906 while working as a laborer on the construction of the Panama Canal.

Emma Kelly married a preacher, then moved to Oklahoma City. Thereafter she disappeared from the pages of history.

The railroad never reached Bighorn Point and during the automobile age the main highways bypassed the town. By 1928 Bighorn Point was a ghost town and today only the limestone foundations of the church remain, almost invisible in the prairie grass.

The Southwell Ranch never prospered, and in 1918 the land was sold to the Standard Oil Company.

Angus McLean returned only once to Bighorn Point, to erect a headstone over Moses Anderson’s grave that has since disappeared.

At least, that’s how the story goes....