Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 929

About this issue

This Beadle and Adams dime novel by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham follows a sixteen-year-old tenderfoot and his dog Chum along an Overland stagecoach trail in the Wild West. When three masked road agents attempt to rob the determined youth, his large mastiff attacks one while the boy shoots another and disarms the third. Though the prisoner escapes before the Overland coach arrives, the driver Joe Jarvis praises the youth's bravery and discovers valuables and weapons on the dead robbers' bodies. Jarvis becomes visibly shaken upon unmasking one body but denies recognizing him. The youth agrees to leave the recovered spoils—money, weapons, watches, and jewelry—in Jarvis's safekeeping. The narrative emphasizes the boy's frontier skills, moral character, and the bond with his loyal dog companion.