Beadle's Dime Library, No. 276

# Museum Catalog Entry

This issue of Beadle's Dime Novels (No. 276, February 6, 1884) contains "Texas Chick, The Southwest Detective; or, Tiger-Lily, the Vulture Queen," by Captain Mark Wilton. The serial opens with a wagon train of pioneers crossing the Texas prairie. A young woman, Miss Riverton, travels with the train alongside a youth named Neal, who is helping her pursue a vendetta against someone who has wronged her. Despite premonitions of danger, the camp is attacked at night by Comanche warriors led by a white man seeking Miss Riverton. Neal is killed; she escapes into the prairie. A stranger discovers the massacre and swears vengeance, identifying himself as Karl Belvin, Neal's father. The narrative then shifts to Walter Latimer, a Virginian traveling to visit his uncle at Deerfoot Ranch, who encounters a ragged frontiersman calling himself "the Texas Chick," a self-described detective and nomadic Texan. As they ride together toward the ranch, armed men suddenly ambush them on the trail.