Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 291

TURK, THE BOY FERRET This issue of Beadle and Adams' weekly series features the opening installment of "Turk, the Boy Ferret" by E. L. Wheeler, author of the "Deadwood Dick" novels. The story follows fifteen-year-old Turk, a street-smart telegraph messenger boy in Philadelphia, who is hired by a man claiming to be diamond merchant Jerome St. Clair to deliver a letter and retrieve a package from St. Clair's residence. Turk successfully completes the errand, delivering a hundred-thousand-dollar diamond set to the man at Broad Street Station and receiving only a dime reward. However, Turk soon discovers he has been an unwitting accomplice in a robbery—the man was an imposter who swindled the diamonds. Fearing police suspicion and detective Jack Grimes' investigation, Turk flees Black-cat Alley and secures new lodgings under an assumed identity to avoid arrest for the swindle.