Beadle's Dime Library No. 412

A Fight for Fortune: A Story of Labor and Capital Captain Fred Whittaker's serialized story introduces Larry Locke, a twelve-year-old vagrant traveling to Holesburg seeking mill work. Arriving after receiving money from a generous young gentleman, Larry evades three tramps attempting robbery, striking their leader with a stone. He meets Red Moll Taber, a goat-herding girl working for Mrs. Skelly, who directs him to the Skinner steel-works. The narrative follows his arrival at the Skelly household as Jim Skelly, a furnaceman, returns from his shift, asking about Larry's interest in becoming an "iron man." The story depicts working-class hardship and juvenile determination against a backdrop of industrial Pennsylvania, combining elements of adventure fiction with commentary on labor conditions.