Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 985

This issue of Beadle and Adams presents "Gideon's Band; or, Jolly Jack in Mexico" by W. J. Hamilton, a Western adventure serial set during the French intervention in Mexico. The protagonist, Big Jack Ridley, a former Union soldier roaming near Matamoras, intervenes when French hussars pursue a fleeing woman on horseback. Ridley draws his revolvers and engages the hussars in gunfight, killing the sergeant and wounding others, but is shot and pinned beneath a fallen horse. He survives and brutally beats the surviving trooper with a belt. The rescued woman, Marietta del Reno, reveals herself as a spy for Juarez's forces. They escape on stolen hussar horses as an entire cavalry battalion pursues them across rough Mexican terrain. The narrative emphasizes Ridley's marksmanship, frontier toughness, and chivalrous protection of the woman against foreign soldiers.