The Lost Hunters; or, The Underground Camp

This issue of Beadle and Adams' weekly dime novel (No. 2577, June 27, 1882) contains "The Lost Hunters: The Underground Camp" by Captain J. F. C. Adams. The adventure serial follows Holmes Wolcott and Peter "Puff" Brown, members of a prospecting expedition in southeastern California. While hunting a grizzly bear near their camp at dusk, the two men become separated from their party and discover an extraordinary phenomenon: a river that flows directly into an underground passage. The narrative combines frontier adventure with geological mystery, featuring frontier hunting sequences, Indian threats from the Mohaves, and the discovery of subterranean geography as the protagonists encounter this Lost River.