Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 438

This issue of Beadle and Adams' pulp weekly from December 15, 1885 features "A Son's Vengeance" by E. L. Wheeler, author of the Deadwood Dick series. Set in Buckshot Camp, Arizona, the story introduces Rowdy Jack, a ruthless gambler and desperado who has killed three men, and Alvin Green, a blind, impoverished organ-grinder with a trained monkey named Pipo. When Rowdy Jack torments the old beggar and forces him into a dice game, the mysterious Santa Fe Sal—a Texas gunslinger in male attire—intervenes. After Pipo attacks Jack's face severely, Sal escorts Alvin to safety, then blocks the pursuing miners with drawn revolvers, killing one man who attempts to advance. She escapes into the camp's wooded areas while the miners give chase.