Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 84

Idyl, the Girl Miner: Roseabud-Rob on Hand

This installment of the Roseabud Rob series by Edward L. Wheeler depicts a gambling scene in the "Full Hand," an elegant gaming establishment in Hayward City, a Black Hills mining town. Baltimore Bess, a woman dressed in male attire and one of the notorious "twin dare-devils," witnesses a high-stakes poker game between Joaquin Murieta Jr., a dark-featured Spaniard, and Lord Byron Cavendish, a florid English aristocrat. After losing money that belongs to his wife Berenice, Joaquin desperately wagers his five-year-old son, Little Pet, against the Englishman's hundred dollars. Cavendish wins decisively. Though Baltimore Bess threatens intervention, Joaquin refuses to break his wager and leaves in anguish, while Cavendish exits with the child despite warnings of retribution from the protective Bess.