The Masked Avenger; or, Death on the Trail

Catalog Note *Beadle's Dime Novels* No. 286 (1873) collects two serialized adventures. "Ethan Allen's Rifles; or, The Green-Mountain Boys" by W. J. Hamilton depicts the pre-Revolutionary period when Ethan Allen and his brigade clash with Tories while resisting British colonial antagonism. "The Masked Avenger; or, Death on the Trail" by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham presents a frontier outlaw narrative set in South-western Texas. A hundred-man bandit encampment composed of Americans, Irishmen, Spaniards, Mexicans, and Comanches, led by the ruthless Dante, encamps near a river. Tension erupts when Red La Roche, the brutal senior lieutenant, challenges young officer Ford Balfour's courage. Dante orders a pistol duel, but before combat begins, a mysterious masked rifleman fires from the hillside, killing Red La Roche with a precise shot to the temple. The horseman, silhouetted against the sky mounted on a black steed, reloads his weapon while observing the stunned outlaws below.