Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 365

The Branded Face by Capt. Howard Holmes. This serialized Western detective story follows Keen Kennard, "the Shasta Shadow," a renowned investigator summoned to Sacramento by a masked woman calling herself Queen Moro. She tasks him with locating a hidden bonanza—a vast gold mine allegedly discovered by five men ten years prior in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The sole survivor, the deranged Gilbert Golden, left cryptic written clues before vanishing. When a young girl interrupts to warn that seeking the mine means death, Kennard swears to find it. The narrative shifts to Red Eye Bar, a lawless buried mining camp in the Sierra Nevada, home to Vera the Viper, a mysterious sorceress, and Dropshot Bluff, the camp's alcalde. The story combines elements of frontier detective work, treasure-hunting, and supernatural intrigue.