Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 368

Catalog Entry This 1884 Beadle and Adams weekly features the opening installment of "Yreka Jim, the Gold-Gatherer; or, The Lottery of Life" by Edward L. Wheeler, author of the Deadwood Dick and Rosebud Rob series. The narrative follows a stagecoach bound for the mining town of Tarpot, carrying diverse passengers: three Eastern newcomers (Doctor Wygant, his son Ned, and a veiled young woman), Foghorn Fan (a female "girl sport" dressed in buckskin and armed), Bullfrog Ben Tarpot (the camp's self-proclaimed founder), and rough frontier types including Big Blobbs and Six-Toed Sol. As the coach speeds through a canyon at night, it halts abruptly. Yreka Jim—a ghostly-apparitioned road agent dressed entirely in white with matching hair and face paint—materializes to rob the passengers. He extracts money from Foghorn Fan and demands funds from Tarpot hidden in his hat lining, demonstrating uncanny knowledge of the passengers' possessions. Ben Tarpot's earlier boastful verse had characterized Jim as a mysterious, seemingly supernatural outlaw who targets stagecoaches for gold and valuables.