Beadle's Dime Novels No. 95

About this issue

This issue of Beadle's Dime Novels (No. 96) advertises "Little Moccasin; or, Along the Madawaska" by John Neal, a story of life and love in the lumber region, praised for its forest imagery and characteristic power and mystery. The main text presented is "Eph Peters: The Scout of the Mohawk Valley" by W. J. Hamilton (No. 95), set in 1755 near Schenectady during the French and Indian War. The narrative opens with a young soldier, Ronald Mannering, encountering Mother Ann (Ann Wylde) gathering herbs by the Mohawk River. Ann, part-French and part-Huron, forbids Ronald from seeing her daughter Margaret, revealing a backstory: she loved Ronald's father years ago, but he married Ronald's mother instead. Ann has sworn Margaret will marry only a Frenchman. Ronald secretly plans to meet Margaret anyway, bribing a enslaved man named Tom with a knife for information about her location.