Beadle's Pocket Novels No. 64: The Island Trapper

About this issue

This frontier adventure tale, serialized in an 1878 Beadle and Adams dime novel, centers on Frontier Shack (Ote Shackelford), a grizzled scout on the Platte River who rescues two young runaways, Charley Shafer and George Long from Cincinnati. The boys, inspired by Gregg's Commerce of the Prairies, traveled west seeking white buffalo, only to be captured after a Pawnee massacre of their emigrant train. Shack arrives during their torture—forced to operate a hand-organ while one dances—and kills several Pawnee warriors. Learning that the raid was led by the "Dandy Demon of the Plains," Tom Kyle, and that three other survivors (government agent Denson, his daughter Mabel, and niece Miss Aiken) were taken northward, the boys insist on rescue. Shack agrees, declaring they possess the requisite courage for their dangerous quest.