Beadle's Dime Library, No. 502

# Museum Catalog Note

This issue of the Beadle & Adams weekly contains the opening installment of "The Train of Six," a romance serial by Philip S. Warne subtitled "A Romance of Spur, Saddle and Trains."

The story begins in Western Missouri, introducing Hal Rountree, a dissipated Eastern gentleman forced west by his brother Jim, a judge. While exploring the countryside, Hal stages an elaborate fall into a brook to meet Rose Crawford, a beautiful young woman gathering sticks. Their brief, flirtatious encounter leaves Rose curious about the mysterious stranger.

That evening, Hal's brother reveals his scheme: he offers Hal wealth, respectability, and a wife—Rose Crawford—if he will reform. The judge had once courted Rose's elder sister Beth before the family's financial ruin through his "sharp practice." Hal, delighted to discover the judge's intended match is the same girl he encountered, agrees to a two-week courtship before matrimony.

An eavesdropper lurking outside witnesses their plotting, establishing a source of future complication.