Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 328

# The Sky Detectives: A Boy's Fight for Life and Honor By Major Mickey Free

This serial opens in the mining town of Golden Gulch where Simpson reports a stolen bag containing five hundred dollars in gold. Suspicion immediately falls on Ben Bradley, seventeen, who shares a cabin with Simpson. Though Ben protests his innocence and even volunteers to help search, miners discover the money hidden in his fireplace. Despite his armed resistance—he wounds four men—Ben is overpowered, bound, and gagged. His sister Annie, sixteen, secretly follows the lynch mob to the valley and drops from a tree onto the horse carrying Ben, cutting the rope with a knife just as the noose tightens. Ben escapes on horseback but is pursued by Sheriff Jack Hays and his mounted posse. When the sheriff's marksman shoots down Ben's horse, the boy flees on foot—only to be rescued by a descending hot-air balloon piloted by a young aeronaut and crewed by a large red-haired Irishman, who pulls Ben to safety as gunfire erupts below.