Beadle's Dime Library No. 649: Buck Taylor the Saddle King

This issue features "The Lasso Rangers' League," a border romance by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, author of Buffalo Bill adventure tales. The opening chapters introduce Buck Taylor, the Saddle King of Texas—a tall, athletically-built cowboy dressed in gaudy attire with diamond pin, ruby horseshoe ring, and fine lariat. In a frontier saloon at Trail Crossing, the notorious outlaw Tiger Tom (revealed to be Tom Trescott, a Fifth Cavalry deserter branded with regimental tattoos) drunkenly proclaims a five-thousand-dollar bounty on his own head. Buck Taylor accepts the challenge, expertly lassoing and subduing the desperado with precise rope work before a crowd of two hundred men. When gamblers and roughnecks led by Dead Beat Dick attempt to rescue Tiger Tom, Taylor demonstrates fearless gunmanship, using his prisoner as a shield and forcing the crowd to stand down. He resolves to transport Tom to Fort Davis to claim the reward.