Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 613

The Circus at White Gopher This serial installment, Chapter II: "The Driver and the Sport," features a stage-coach journey in the New Mexico mining territory. A well-dressed young woman of refined bearing travels alone from White Oaks to Golden Plume via hack, attended by driver Long Hank. At Murphy's Clearing (halfway point), a gentleman stranger boards—identified as a "sport" (a man of means living by his wits). Long Hank becomes hostile and insulting toward the passenger. When the sport requests fare negotiations and payment change, the driver refuses and demands exact payment. Provoked by Long Hank's insulting remarks about gamblers being unfit company for the lady, the sport challenges him. The two fight behind the hotel; the sport, possessed of scientific boxing training, defeats Long Hank with a precise punch, knocking him unconscious. Long Hank concedes, allowing the sport passage.