The Dime Library, No. 1063

This August 1902 issue features "Darkie Dan, the Colored Detective; or, The Mississippi Mystery," a serial by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham. The prologue establishes Dan as a courageous enslaved boy who saves his young mistress Gertrude from a wolf pack, earning his freedom and a position as valet to planter Fenton Delamere. Subsequent scenes introduce Oscar Delamere, Fenton's evil brother presumed dead but alive, who demands marriage between his son and Fenton's daughter and attempts to murder the planter aboard a Mississippi steamboat. Dan intervenes to save his master's life. The narrative combines adventure, melodrama, and mystery within a plantation setting, emphasizing Dan's heroic loyalty and detective prowess against criminal antagonists.