Beadle's Dime Library No. 926

# "Old Sunflower the Silent Smiter"

Beadle and Adams, 1896. Issue No. 9246, Vol. 2, serialized novel by Albert W. Aiken.

This adventure narrative introduces Jonathan "Old Sunflower" Flowers, a Wyoming cattleman known for his horse-breeding ranch, who is leaving New York aboard a ferry and train. Detective John Mack observes his departure from the city. Aboard the ferry and railway cars, Old Sunflower witnesses an unsettling pair: a sinister Frenchman traveling with a pale, dark-haired woman named Jenella who appears enslaved to his will through what she describes as an inexplicable hypnotic or mystical power. Eavesdropping from the seat behind, Old Sunflower learns the Frenchman is transporting Jenella to a private lunatic asylum to silence her, claiming she suffers from delusions while she protests she is perfectly sane. The Westerner resolves to intervene despite his original plan to leave the city.