Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 77

This issue of Beadle's Dime Novels (September 24, 1879) contains "The Fresh of Frisco: The Heiress of Buenaventura," a serial by Albert W. Aiken set in 1850s Southern California.

The story opens at Kern Bar mining camp where vigilantes execute suspected criminals and expel five others. Jackson Blake, "the Fresh of Frisco"—a notorious gambler, alleged desperado, and gunslinger—arrives for trial after being arrested on suspicion alone. With characteristic coolness, he claims innocence in the camp and reveals hidden revolvers. Judge Lynch banishes him within one hour. Blake departs, declaring he'll instead join the outlaws of the Sierra Nevada.

The narrative shifts to the California coast, following a Scottish ship captain and his passenger, a beautiful dark-haired woman who is the orphaned heir to her grandfather's estate. Her grandfather, a former Mexican land baron who called himself Buenaventura, died in 1846 after hiding substantial treasures in the mountains. A rival claimant—Alexander Black, the grandfather's former overseer—threatens her inheritance. The captain plans a clandestine landing at Santa Barbara to avoid Black's agents.