Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 214

This weekly story periodical from August 30, 1881 (volume IX, number 214) features "Wolfgang the Robber of the Rhine; Or, The Young Knight of the Crossicorde" by Captain Frederick Whittaker, a prolific author of adventure fiction. The serial opens in the Black Forest in 1274 with a vivid boar hunt: a young nobleman pursuing game encounters a wounded boar that fights four massive hounds in a stream. The huntsman kills the boar with a spear thrust from horseback. Riding toward a castle overlooking the Rhine, the youth—who gives his name as Adelbert—meets the beautiful dark-haired Lady Bertha von Falkenstein at a window. She warns him the castle belongs to Sir Wolfgang of Ernstein, a notorious robber-knight holding her prisoner as ward to her lands. Before Adelbert can flee, Wolfgang returns with armed retainers. Adelbert vows to rescue Bertha within a lunar month, then turns to face the approaching warriors.