pulps
Munsey's Magazine, December 1921
"The Trail of Conflict," by Emilie Loring, opens this December 1921 issue of Munsey's Magazine. This romantic serial presents a complex cast spanning East and West: Peter Courtlandt, a financially ruined gentleman, receives an extraordinary proposition from Daniel Glamorgan, a self-made oil magnate and former coal-miner. Glamorgan offers to forgive the mortgage on the Courtlandt estate if Stephen Courtlandt, Peter's overseas-veteran son and lawyer, marries Glamorgan's daughter Geraldine, known as Jerry. Glamorgan's obsession stems from witnessing the Courtlandt family's social superiority in his youth; he has spent decades accumulating wealth and grooming his daughters to marry into genteel families. When Peter reluctantly presents this ultimatum to Stephen—who has never met Jerry and resists the arrangement—tension erupts between father and son. The narrative juggles numerous secondary characters including potential romantic entanglements across Western ranching and Eastern manor settings.