The Boy Tramp Detective

"The Double-Grip Witness," by William G. Patten, serialized in this 1889 Beadle and Adams publication, follows Tom Tack, a resourceful sixteen-year-old vagrant. The narrative opens with Tom's arrival at a country railroad station. After befriending Ed Collins, the station agent, Tom reveals his past: he fled his guardian Big Bob, a petty criminal who keeps a mysterious yellowed document Tom believes rightfully belongs to him. Collins assists Tom boarding a freight train bound for Rockford. However, Tom discovers Big Bob and an associate named Jim already hidden in the boxcar. Big Bob violently seizes Tom, nearly strangling him, though Jim intervenes. Big Bob claims finding Tom fortuitous, suggesting the boy's value relates to the document. The serial continues with tension between the characters in the moving train car.