Beadle's Dime Library, No. 142

This 1881 issue of Beadle's Weekly features the serial "Captain Crimson, the Man of the Iron Face; or, The Nemesis of the Plains" by Major Dangerfield Burr. The story opens on the prairie where a mysterious bearded rifleman ambushes two riders, killing a young man named Harold who had been sent by his father, Major Burt Malcolm, to investigate Harvey Vertner's past. Harold's body is left on the plains while his black servant grieves beside him. The narrative then shifts to Malcolm's Louisiana plantation, Woodland Rest, where Malcolm faces financial ruin from gambling debts. Desperate, he has pledged his daughter Nina's hand to Harvey Vertner—himself the notorious gambler "Kent Conrad, King of Diamonds"—to settle losses. The serial culminates with Vertner's wedding to Nina and his subsequent confession: he wore a false beard while courting her, concealing his identity as both gambler and disguised officer. Malcolm agrees to keep the secret.