Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 454

This issue of Beadle & Adams's dime novel magazine (Vol. XXXV, No. 404, July 6, 1887) features "The Mysterious Marauder: A Tale of the Cattle Corrals" by Maj. Daniel Boone Dumont. The Western adventure opens with a nighttime cattle raid in Southern Colorado: young Jack and a capable young woman named Vic—"the Mysterious Raider"—drive six or eight stolen steers across a threatening landscape. Pursued by Jonas ranch hands, Vic shoots one pursuer from her horse with a Winchester rifle during a lightning flash, then escapes with Jack into a rainstorm. The narrative then shifts to the Jonas ranch house, where wealthy Jewish businessman Simon Jonas consults with his son Herman and foreman Ralph Harkness about escalating cattle thefts targeting his property. The story establishes Jonas's wealth and isolation—despised locally despite his success—and introduces his dissolute younger son Ike.