Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 823

About this issue

This installment of the Beadle and Adams dime novel series by Oll Coomes presents the opening chapters of a frontier adventure. A mysterious young woman arrives alone at Pilgrims' Bar, a remote placer mining camp in southwestern Utah, seeking protection from unnamed enemies. The discovery of a woman in the all-male miners' camp creates extraordinary excitement. Mayor Joshua Bloom orders the rough miners to clean themselves and dress properly. During the cleanup, a mounted villain abducts the girl, but a young mountain patrolman named Silent Saul—described as blond-haired, scarred, and about twenty years old—shoots the kidnapper from ambush. Saul emerges as the story's presumed hero. The narrative emphasizes frontier lawlessness, mining-camp society, and looming danger to the mysterious young woman.