Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 523

The King Pin Conspirator This western adventure serial by Col. Arthur F. Holt follows a stagecoach journey through Spirit Canyon. The narrative centers on three passengers: Reginald Ray, a commanding fifty-year-old businessman; his niece Rachel, a young woman of exceptional beauty; and Algernon Arnold, an impeccably dressed dandy in fashionable eastern attire. When drunk driver Rocky Tom deliberately endangers the coach on a precipitous mountain trail, Arnold draws a small pistol and demands safer driving. The confrontation is interrupted when the horses stumble, sending the coach careening toward a chasm called Satan's Kettle. Rocky Tom plummets to his death, and Rachel falls through a window. Arnold heroically rappels into the gorge on a rope, discovers Rachel suspended on a ledge by a shrub, and rescues her. After righting the coach and killing the injured lead horse, Arnold takes the reins to complete the journey to Canyon City, having earned the gratitude and friendship of his companions.