Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 639

This issue of *Beadle and Adams*' weekly (Vol. XXV, No. 98, October 1889) contains "The Lame Horse Miner's Quest" by Jo Pierce, a serial Western adventure. The opening chapter introduces Sunrise Saul, a sixteen-year-old newspaper vendor on the K. & Q. Express railroad, who overhears railroad employees discussing systematic robberies. Among the passengers are Abner Plunket, a rural Connecticut deacon carrying $400 for an African missionary society; an elderly James Enonbridge and his young granddaughter Emmie traveling to support Ralph Enonbridge, who faces legal prosecution; and a rough "wild Western man" in the smoking car. The narrative establishes multiple plot threads: the train robberies, Plunket's vulnerability to theft despite his overconfidence, and the family's legal crisis, positioning Saul as a potential observer or participant in unfolding events.