Beadle's Dime Library No. 351

About this issue

This serialized western adventure by Joseph E. Badger Jr. opens with "The Camp of the Cowboys," set at a desert spring. Three rough maverick-hunters—Dick Wheeler, the handsome leader; the deformed but formidable Long-legs; and the quick-acting Rickety Joe—are rounding unbranded cattle for sale. A sophisticated blonde stranger arrives at their campfire claiming to be Jack Robinson, a prospector bound for Rocky Bar. Wheeler initially suspects him of being "Nor' West Nick," a detective, but Robinson denies this and claims peaceful mining intentions. Accepted into the group, Robinson joins them as they lasso a magnificent black bull from their herd to sell at Rocky Bar that night. The narrative combines frontier action with character description and suspicious stranger-meeting tropes typical of pulp western fiction.