Beadle's Dime Library No. 52

This issue features two serials. "The Chief of Scouts," attributed to Hon. Wm. F. Cody (Buffalo Bill), opens with Chapter 1, "The Bandit's Doom." A cavalry column is ambushed on the Texas frontier by Mexican guerrilla bandits. The young Lieutenant Decatur is killed; his uncle Colonel Decatur takes command but is outnumbered. Captain Ivan Martino, a Mexican officer, intervenes to stop Mercado's attack. Martino releases the Decaturs and executes Mercado for disobedience, then gifts Helen Decatur, the colonel's beautiful young daughter, a jeweled gold chain before departing.

The second serial begins Chapter II, "The Self-Exile," set at Glyndon Castle in England. Lord Glyndon arranges a marriage between his daring twenty-year-old son Paul and Leonore, the eighteen-year-old daughter of his friend Earl Dorcas. Paul impresses the visiting guests by leaping his horse over the castle gate.