Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 896

This 1894 Beadle and Adams dime novel, "Gold Nugget Camp," presents a mystery-adventure hybrid centered on kidnapping and attempted murder. New York Nat, a teenage detective and "Boy Secret Service Chief of the Gamin Ferrets," meets Sherman Canfield, a New York gentleman, who enlists him to solve the mysterious disappearance of millionaire Malcolm Marcey. Nat reveals he shadowed two suspects entering Marcey's home; they emerged supporting the weakened millionaire into a carriage before one attacker knocked Nat unconscious. Canfield receives a letter from his mining partner Hugh Hotcomb in Colorado detailing a conspiracy: Maybrick Marcey, the millionaire's dissolute younger son, plots with associates to murder his father and unknown elder half-brother to secure the entire fortune and marry wealthy miner's daughter Florence Dudley. With Marcey already missing, Nat accepts the case, preparing to travel west with fellow ferrets Freckles and Keno to investigate and capture the criminals.