Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 493

About this issue

This issue of Beadle and Adams' weekly (Vol. XIX, No. 493, January 1887) features the serial "Boston Bob's Checkmate" by Albert W. Aiken, author of western fiction including "Joe Buck of Angels" and "Wolf Demon." The story opens in Black Hills City, Arizona, a booming silver-mining settlement threatened by nearby Apache tribes. Late one night, three drunk miners—a buckskin-clad mountain man named Bill and two others—confront a blanket-wrapped figure by the riverbank, revealed to be an Indian woman. As Bill attempts to harass her, a well-dressed young stranger intervenes. The confrontation escalates verbally when the stranger insults Sol Grundy, one of the miners, touching on rumors that Grundy escaped from an Illinois jail over a stolen-horse incident. Grundy attacks the stranger, who proves a skilled boxer, striking Grundy between the eyes with considerable force. The narrative emphasizes frontier violence and racial antagonism within a mining-camp setting.