Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 296

This 1888 Beadle and Adams dime novel, edited by Edward L. Wheeler, presents "Denver Doll's Drift; or, The Road Queen's Big Campaign," a Western adventure serial set in the mining camp of Freshet Flats, Arizona. The narrative opens in Jim Fisk's grocery store where Jean La Force, a smooth card sharp, boasts of winning Denver Doll's lucrative quartz mine through an "El Paso skin game"—he has lent her a thousand dollars on a twenty-four-hour mortgage. When the mysterious Arizona Alf arrives and stops La Force from strangling elderly miner Uncle Job, the two engage in a boxing match. Simultaneously, a masked road agent holds up a stagecoach, ordering its passengers—including a fat gentleman, a dandified swell, and a Black servant—to line up for robbery. The narrative intercuts between these developing confrontations, establishing conflicts over the mine's ownership and introducing frontier vigilante justice.