Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 861

This 1895 Beadle and Adams dime novel issue contains "Colonel Bob's Trump Backer" by Harold Payne, serialized in weekly installments. The story follows Colonel Bob Avondale, a formerly wealthy man ruined by gambling, who has squandered his fortune and now faces poverty with a wife and child dependent on him. When Avondale encounters his nemesis Fred Marboro—a man who deliberately lured him into gambling to wreak revenge over a woman named Nellie Watkins they both once pursued—a violent confrontation erupts in a saloon, ending with Avondale firing at Marboro. The narrative introduces "the Patriarch," an elderly pickpocket who steals twenty thousand dollars from a young gambler named Tom Watson, then blackmails Watson into facilitating a robbery of wealthy widow Mrs. Lonsdale's diamonds by unlocking his employer Marboro's house. The Patriarch coordinates with his criminal gang—the Spider, Red Regan, Black Mike, and Claw—to execute the heist.