Beadle's Pocket Library No. 293

About this issue

This issue features "Kit Kenyon's Man-Hunt," by Edward Willett, a Western detective serial starring Dwarf Jake, the detective protagonist. The story opens when Jake discovers the abandoned mining camp of Cacheton and finds his friend Kit Kenyon fevered in a house, his wife dead on the floor—shot by robbers who stole three thousand dollars in gold and notes during a night attack. Though delirious, Kit recalls two assailants. Jake examines physical evidence: a brass button from a short man's buckskin coat, boot impressions suggesting the other was tall, and sorrel horse hair. He determines their westward direction and vows to track them while Kit recovers. A second narrative strand introduces a young man named Harry Poindexter, dressed incongruously in derby hat and cutaway coat with a deerskin jacket featuring brass buttons, fishing at a mountain stream where he encounters Clara Wynne, a fresh-faced teenager armed with a silver-mounted revolver. They exchange names and discover themselves neighbors, with Poindexter mentioning his sheep farm begun last fall.