Beadle's Pocket Library, No. 162

This 1887 pulp serial, Little Hurricane, the Boy Captain; or, The Oath of the Young Avengers by Oll Coomes, opens with a frontier melodrama. Dying ranchman Ishmael Langdon, shot by masked men and a mysterious dark-haired woman with hypnotic powers, administers an oath to seven young men—including the protagonist Harry Reynolds, known as Little Hurricane, a celebrated boy ranger. The woman and her accomplices have kidnapped Langdon's daughters, Edith and Mary, after forcing him to sign a document related to the Harrison Dalrymple estate. In Chapter II, Little Hurricane intervenes in a stagecoach robbery, leaping onto a coach whose driver lies mortally wounded. He takes the reins and battles pursuing road-agents with expert marksmanship while protecting passengers including Calvin Stewart and his daughter.