Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 277

# Denver Doll, the Detective Queen

This dime novel by Edward L. Wheeler features "Denver Doll, or Yankee Eisler's Big Surround," a detective adventure serial. The opening chapter, "One Night's Mystery," depicts four prospectors—Walt Christie (Black), Jacob "Yakie" Strauss (Dutch), a Chinaman named Chug, and a prisoner named Tom Jarvis—camped in a mountain gulch. When Walt hears a child's cry in the snowy night, he investigates alone and discovers a murdered woman and a four-year-old girl. He retrieves a silver box and letter from the body, then carries the child back to camp. Denver Doll, the "Detective Queen"—a young woman detective sworn to break up John McParland's outlaw gang—arrives just as Walt returns. The body mysteriously vanishes. The second chapter jumps ahead one year, showing Shining Bar transformed from a lonely prospecting camp into a flourishing mining town with saloons, gambling houses, and a general store.