Beadle's Pocket Library No. 123

# Solid Sam, the Boy Road-Agent; or, The Branded Brows

This serial by Edward L. Wheeler (author of "Deadwood Dick" novels) concerns frontier violence and survival in Wyoming. The opening prologue depicts two hired ruffians, Black Eph and Bosting Bill, murdering Mrs. Hathaway on the raging Yellowstone River during spring floods—her husband Guy Hathaway hired them to eliminate her for a thousand dollars after finding another woman. A young hunter rescues the couple's unconscious daughter from a sand bar; meanwhile, an old man called White Beard discovers Mrs. Hathaway's corpse and the surviving boy, whom he takes to raise, swearing vengeance. Six years later, a gang of some sixty rough stampeders—miners abandoning one strike for richer claims—descends into a canyon toward a log cabin, suggesting imminent conflict between the organized miners and cabin settlers.