Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 772

Catalog Note: *Dick Doom's Death-Grip* (Beadle and Adams, 1892) This issue opens with "The Detective by Destiny: A Story of the Shadow Sharks of New Orleans" by Col. Prentiss Ingraham. The narrative follows Dixie Gray, a sixteen-year-old orphaned tramp traveling toward New Orleans with his dog Guard. Camping by the Mississippi levee, Dixie witnesses two men ambush a carriage carrying wealthy planter Colonel Dick Grayhurst and his thirteen-year-old daughter Marion. When the attackers kill the driver and wound the colonel, Dixie and Guard intervene decisively—Dixie shoots one assailant dead while Guard subdues the other. Grateful and impressed by the boy's courage and education, Grayhurst invites Dixie to remain at his plantation as clerk and secretary at fifty dollars monthly. A doctor arrives to extract a bullet from the colonel's arm while Dixie assists. The story concludes with Dixie installed in comfortable quarters at Grayhurst's mansion, seemingly on the threshold of a new life of stability and opportunity.