Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 970

Catalog Note *Ahoy Abe, the Dock Sharp; or, The Parson Sport's Mysterious Mission* by Jo Pierce concludes an adventure serial centered on Abraham "Ahoy Abe" Dow, a seventeen-year-old dock worker of the North River waterfront. After rescuing a young woman named Elise from drowning when the gangplank of the schooner *Brown Bet* deliberately breaks beneath her, Abe befriends her uncle, Captain John Twiss. Investigating the sabotage, they discover the plank was nearly sawed through. When Elise screams from the captain's cabin, they find three human skeletons positioned at a table: two seated playing cards (one holding four queens and an ace), and one standing behind with a raised dagger, creating a tableau suggesting a murder interrupted mid-act. Captain Twiss, horrified by this inexplicable display, orders Abe away, fearing it connected to the earlier plot against them.