Beadle's Pocket Library No. 315

This issue of Beadle and Adams' pulp weekly (No. 315, January 22, 1890) contains the opening installment of "Tom, the Arizona Sport," by Major E. L. St. Vrain, subtitled "Tombstone Tom as he is called."

The story opens as a stagecoach arrives in Tombstone, Arizona, carrying young Daniel Wheelock and his father Alfred. Upon registering at the More Light Hotel, Alfred Wheelock is shot dead by an unknown assassin. The miners immediately suspect Pedro Castro, an elderly man found cleaning a revolver outside his cabin, and attempt to lynch him. Daniel's pleas for justice are ignored until Tombstone Tom—a small but fearless young man known for his gunfighting prowess—arrives and disperses the mob with drawn revolvers and colorful threats.

Tom befriends Daniel and privately theorizes that the murderer was actually inside the hotel room, not outside as assumed, and that Sam Slasher and Ben Kipp know more than they admit. Daniel reveals they traveled from Virginia seeking his mysteriously disappeared uncle. The narrative establishes a mystery-adventure framework mixing frontier justice themes with detective elements.