Beadle's Pocket Novels No. 65: Wolf-Cap

About this issue

By Captain Charles Howard, this frontier narrative is set in August 1812 during the War of 1812. The protagonist Wolf-Cap (Card Belt) is a trapper dwelling in the Ohio "fire-lands" who receives warning from Johnny Appleseed that General Hull has surrendered Detroit. With British and Indian forces advancing, Wolf-Cap alerts neighboring settlers including Levi Armstrong and his daughter Huldah to seek refuge in the fortified block-house of a neighbor called Strong. The central conflict emerges when Wolf-Cap discovers a bloodstained, knife-pinned warning from the "Night-Hawks"—a group led by Royal Funk—demanding he abandon the region. Wolf-Cap responds with his own defiant message nailed to his cabin door, refusing to flee. The narrative explores themes of frontier settlement rights, wartime danger, and individual resistance against intimidation during the War of 1812.