Beadle's Pocket Library No. 8

Antelope Abe, the Boy Guide by Noll Coomes

This dime novel serial follows Antelope Abe, an eighteen-year-old skilled marksman, horseman, and scout, pursued across the Des Moines prairie by hostile Indians. After killing several pursuers with rifle shots during a dramatic chase, he unknowingly rides into a timber thicket where ambushers lasso him. Tim Bodsford, a white outlaw allied with the Indians, captures him and demands information about a stolen girl. When Bodsford challenges Abe to armed combat within a ring of savages, the youth employs acrobatic kicks—turning handsprings and leaping to plant his feet in Bodsford's face repeatedly, stunning the outlaw. Abe escapes through an opening in the ring, fleeing on foot across the prairie. Pursued by remounted Indians and the vengeful Bodsford, he races toward distant timber but discovers he is running toward "the Wolf's Mouth"—a geographical feature suggesting imminent peril. The narrative breaks mid-sentence as his hopeless predicament becomes clear.