Diamond Dick, Jr.'s Call Down; or, The King of the Silver Box

# Diamond Dick, Jr.'s Call Down; or, The King of the Silver Box

This weekly periodical (No. 176 of the Diamond Dick Library, 5 cents, March 1898) features a Western adventure serial by W. B. Lawson. In Cripple Creek, young bank cashier Joe Evans loses heavily at faro to Felipe Ortego, the Spanish gambler known as "the King of the Silver Box." Ortego blackmails Evans into assisting a scheme to rob Miss Bicknell, the niece of Evans's bank president and his fiancée, of a shipment of diamonds she is bringing to Colorado. Diamond Dick, Jr. (Bertie Wade) and his partner Handsome Harry overhear the plot via telephone, then orchestrate a counter-scheme involving Miss Bicknell delaying her arrival and carrying paste duplicates instead. The narrative intercuts gambling table action with criminal scheming and the protagonists' detective work to outwit Ortego.