Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 428

Museum Catalog Note *The Rounding Boy of the Star; or, The Reporter Detective* by Charles Morris is a serialized adventure story from the October 6, 1885 issue of Beadle and Adams's weekly publication. The narrative follows Fred Flyer, a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old reporter for the *Morning Star* newspaper, as he pursues stories with reckless determination. In Chapter I, "A Perilous Path," Fred crosses a frozen Delaware River by leaping between drifting ice blocks—a dangerous feat undertaken to reach a railroad collision site when telegraph wires are down. Soaked and nearly drowning, he reaches Camden and learns of a train wreck five miles distant caused by two locomotives colliding in blinding snow. Chapter II, "A Railroad Smash-Up," describes the collision: two trains, delayed and blinded by drifts, crash head-on, producing mangled casualties and a burning car. Fred arrives aboard a wrecking train, interviewing officials and gathering details for his newspaper despite conductor obstruction. The work exemplifies the period's adventure-serial conventions featuring a determined young protagonist in contemporary industrial settings.