Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 515

Deadwood Dick's Protégée: A Tale of Pistol Pocket

By Edward L. Wheeler, author of the Deadwood Dick novels and other frontier tales.

Set in Pistol Pocket, Arizona, a mining camp accessible only through Pretty Pass, controlled by toll-gate keeper Mountain Mose. When English gentleman Sir Clyde Carleton arrives on a stormy night seeking passage, he finds Mose conspiring with ruffians Pete Pigeon and Bill Monk to assassinate Deadwood Dick, the camp's mayor and mining magnate. Carleton is forced to stay at Mose's crude hotel. A confrontation ensues when Pigeon demands Carleton buy drinks for the men. After defending himself against their assault, Carleton accepts whisky from Mose—poisoned liquor intended for him. Pigeon accidentally drinks it and dies. When Carleton accuses Mose of murder, the proprietor triggers a trap door, dropping the Englishman into darkness. An old man and young girl witness the crime, the old man denouncing Mose as a murderer.