Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 824

The Maine Log-Driver in New York This serial installment features Phineas P. Pratt, a log-driver from Skowhegan, Maine, who comes to New York seeking an inherited English fortune. The story opens when Pratt asks young Billy Wade for help recovering money stolen from him by "Happy Harry Hudson" during a train journey. Entering a boarding house to locate Hudson, they discover the man dead in his room—apparently murdered. Frightened, both flee before reporting the body. Billy then reveals his suspicion that Pratt is the victim of a classic bunco scheme perpetrated by lawyers "Dulaney & Jones Brothers," who have convinced him to pay five hundred dollars to claim ten thousand dollars in inheritance money. Billy, a "Bunco Bouncer" who specializes in exposing swindlers, warns Pratt of the deception, though Pratt remains skeptical. Their conversation is interrupted by the looming problem of their likely arrest as murder suspects.