Beadle's Pocket Novels No. 74: Little Rifle, the Boy Trapper

# Little Rifle, the Boy Trapper

This dime novel by Capt. "Bruin" Adams (a Beadle and Adams publication from 1878) follows Little Rifle, a skilled fifteen-year-old boy trapper living along the Upper Columbia River. Raised by Old Ruff Robsart, a veteran frontiersman, Little Rifle has learned to hunt and trap beaver while remaining perpetually alert for danger. Moving up the Columbia valley carrying a beaver trap and rifle, he detects suspicious movement in the grass across the river and identifies a Blackfoot Indian paddling a birch canoe. Little Rifle retreats into the woods, circles around, and reaches the riverbank where the Blackfoot lands. Hidden behind a rock with his rifle cocked and aimed, Little Rifle observes the Indian—described as filthy, pockmarked, and bearing the distinctive flattened nose of the Blackfoot tribe—but hesitates to fire, feeling it would constitute murder. The narrative breaks as the Indian's actions continue.