Death Grip of the Tenderfoot Detective

# A Hunt of Old Secrecy

"A Hunt of Old Secrecy" by George C. Jenks continues a serialized narrative in this November 1888 issue of Beadle & Adams' New York Dime Library.

The story opens at a Colorado tavern where cowboys prepare for a roundup. Bob Brace, a burly cowboy, drags out Old Secrecy, a dissolute white-haired man, and forces him to ride an untamed broncho for five minutes to win the horse. Despite Secrecy's exhaustion, he survives the brutal bucking. When the girl Belle (revealed as Secrecy's daughter) intervenes to help her father, a mysterious stranger on a gray horse arrives and rescues him by pulling him from the bucking horse mid-gallop. The horse collapses dead.

The stranger introduces himself as "Death-Grip" Dick Young, claiming he possesses an occult ability to sense danger through handshakes. As he holds Belle's hand, he detects danger and glimpses a rifle aimed at him through a basement window. He pursues the gunman but finds the cellar empty, confronted by the mystery of how the assailant escaped undetected.