Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 143

# Museum Catalog Note

This issue of the Beadle and Adams weekly (No. 98, 5 cents) contains the opening installment of "Scar-Face Saul, the Silent Hunter; or, The Mystery of Fort Rane," by Oll Coombes, a western frontier adventure tale.

The narrative follows an emigrant train led by Ishmael Bronson, lost on the Dakota prairie after a grass fire obscures visibility. Two young rangers—the handsome Arnold Bush and the youthful Tom Rane—guide the party toward Beaver Creek timber. Tom Rane and Bronson's fair daughter Ada experience immediate mutual attraction. The train constructs Fort Rane, a fortified enclosure of prairie sod around their wagons. That night, Indians hidden in the creek attempt a surprise assault; Tom Rane repels them. A larger coordinated attack follows, led by the outlaw "Con Robber" (Conrad Robb), which the defenders again resist. The next morning, a U.S. Army trooper arrives demanding Tom Rane's surrender, claiming he is either Con Robber or his accomplice—a charge Bronson indignantly rejects. A force of Indians and outlaws then appears on the horizon, approaching the fort.