The Boy Miners

This Beadle and Adams publication contains The Boy Miners; or, The Enchanted Island, a tale of the Yellowstone Country by Edward S. Ellis, published in 1874.

The story follows young Edwin Inwood, his elder brother George, and Jim Tubbs, an enslaved African American, who are mining for gold in the Yellowstone region. When Mohave Indians discover their operation, the three escape into a hidden cave system. During a tense standoff, Jim Tubbs uses his prodigious strength to physically overpower a Mohave warrior, pulling him into the cave through a narrow opening. The captured Indian becomes their prisoner, raising the question of what to do with him. The narrative emphasizes action and danger, with the miners defending their position against repeated Indian attacks. The novel was presented as a dime novel format alongside a catalog of Beadle and Adams' instructional handbooks on subjects ranging from elocution to cookery to etiquette.