Beadle's Pocket Library No. 9

# Ned Wylde, the Boy Scout

This dime novel installment, credited to "Texas Jack" (J. B. Omohundro), opens a Western adventure serial featuring the titular boy protagonist. The narrative depicts a young scout camping near cottonwoods who witnesses three riders burying a murdered woman in a shallow grave—a gashed throat and forehead wound visible, a diamond ring on her finger. The boy, driven by curiosity, begins excavating the body when war cries erupt across the prairie. The second chapter introduces Hart Moline, the bearded leader of the burial party, revealed as a desperate border ruffian. Pursued by Sioux warriors, Moline flees on horseback while gunfire erupts in the thicket. Ned Wylde, the boy, finds himself trapped between an Indian village and attacking warriors closing from multiple directions, forced to flee deeper into the woods. The narrative combines frontier action with mystery elements—the woman's identity and her killers' motives remain undisclosed.