Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 140

This issue of Beadle and Adams' pulp weekly contains the opening installment of "Blue-Blazes; or, The Break o' Day Boys of Rocky Bar" by Frank Dumont. The narrative follows a masked outlaw chief operating in Idaho's silver regions who robs a stagecoach carrying an elderly passenger named Spencer Gibson, forcing him to surrender ten thousand dollars hidden in his boot sole. When the robber glimpses a sickly young woman passenger and recognizes her, he abandons the robbery and flees in distress. The woman, Edith, later confronts the outlaw—revealed as Fred, her faithless lover—outside a Boise City saloon. Consumptive and desperate, she declares her enduring love despite his desertion. When Fred refuses reconciliation, Edith shoots herself fatally, collapsing at his feet. The story blends frontier robbery, melodrama, and romantic betrayal.