Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 263

This 1882 Beadle and Adams dime novel installment (No. 263) presents "Deadwood Dick's Divide; or, The Spirit of Swamp Lake" by Edward L. Wheeler. The story opens at Doomsday's Ferry on Swamp Lake, where ferryman Dan Doomsday and merchant Jacob Solomons operate the only settlement. When young Kate Laurel arrives with her ailing mother seeking passage to the Herndon mines, Doomsday refuses to ferry them at night, claiming the lake is haunted. He recounts how the notorious outlaw Deadwood Dick, pursued by rivals over a claimed gold divide, cursed the lake and rode his horse into it a year prior. Kate witnesses an apparition—a ghostly robed figure in a canoe. One year later, the settlement has grown into a bustling town. Kate remains focused on locating the living Deadwood Dick, dismissing the ghost legend. A man named Wild Walt seeks to recover Dick's buried treasure, while tension mounts over mysterious nocturnal disturbances attributed to supernatural causes.