Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 1155

This issue of Beadle's Half-Dime Library (No. 55, Vol. XL, 1904) features the opening chapters of "Hawkeye Harry, The Young Trapper Ranger" by Oll Coomes, a frontier adventure serial. The narrative opens in territorial Iowa, establishing the setting of white settler encroachment into Indian lands. Hawkeye Harry, an eighteen-year-old trapper named for his keen vision and gray-hawk-skin cap, discovers Indian tracks near his trap line at Lake Boyer, indicating theft and hostile presence. Pursuing the trail as evening falls, he encounters a series of supernatural mysteries: smoke rising inexplicably from a basswood tree and a black, hairy form emerging from a shallow creek. From hiding, Harry witnesses a hooded, veiled figure—whose voice resembles his companion "Old Optic"—kill and scalp a Sioux warrior by moonlight, claiming the scalp "for the Unknown." Before Harry can act, twenty Indian warriors encircle the mysterious avenger, forcing Harry to raise his rifle in intervention.