The Black Hills Jezebel; or, Deadwood Dick's Ward

This issue of Beadle and Adams' weekly serial presents "The Black Hills Jezebel: or, Deadwood Dick's Ward" by Edward L. Wheeler, continuing his popular frontier series. The story opens in South Dakota's Black Hills with Kentucky Kit, a young woman dressed in men's clothing, driving an overland wagon carrying a hunchbacked man—her father figure. When hunting for game, Kit encounters two rough frontiersmen, Bloody Bill and Black Bob, who attempt to take advantage of her but are outmaneuvered by her rifle and nerve. Upon discovering her name is Kit/Kate, the ruffians recognize her from their instructions: they've been hired for a hundred dollars apiece to murder both her and the old man in the wagon. The chapter ends with the assassins crawling toward the camp at dawn to poison the meat with arsenic and cocculus indicus while the victims sleep.