Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 27

This issue of Beadle's Half-Dime Library (Vol. II, No. 27, 1878) contains the beginning of "Antelope Abe, the Boy Guide" by Oll Coomes, author of "The Dumb Spy" and "Vagabond Joe."

The frontier adventure follows eighteen-year-old Antelope Abe, a skilled scout and marksman, as he flees pursuing Indians across the Des Moines prairie. After killing several warriors in a running gunfight, Abe is ambushed and lassoed by concealed Indians. He's captured and confronted by Tim Bodsford, a white outlaw renegade who demands information about a girl Abe allegedly stole. Forced to fight Bodsford before a ring of fifty savages, Abe uses gymnastic kicks—including a backflip—to defeat the larger man twice and escape through the resulting chaos. Pursued again on foot, Abe races toward distant timber but discovers he's running toward the "Wolf's Mouth," a catastrophic mile-long chasm thirty to fifty feet wide with no apparent means of crossing. Trapped between the pursuing Indians and Bodsford on mounted horses, his situation appears hopeless.