Beadle's New Dime Novels: Quindaro

This issue features "Quindaro; The Heroine of Fort Laramie," a western tale by Lieutenant Colonel Hazelton, set in 1857–58 at Fort Laramie in the Rocky Mountains. The narrative centers on Manonie (called "Wild Bird"), a white woman raised since age three by Pawnee Indians after capture in Iowa. She rejects marriage proposals from the warrior Wontum and falls in love with Lieutenant Henry Marshall of the fort garrison. When Wontum's marriage suit is spurned, he orchestrates a campaign of vengeance: he attacks an emigrant train at South Pass, captures prisoners, deliberately allows one to escape to draw troops from the fort, then leads two hundred warriors toward Laramie intending to destroy the garrison and seize Manonie. The narrative breaks mid-scene as Manonie returns to the fort after scouting all day for signs of attack.