Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 759

"The Three Sharks of Big Ledge," by John W. Osborn A gold-camp western serial appearing in this 1898 Beadle and Adams dime novel. The story opens with a coach journey to the booming mining town of Big Ledge, where driver Giddy Norton describes three productive mines—the Golden Horn (owned by Dandy Jim Crocker), the High Horse (Saul Bartol), and the Lone Hunter (Major Myst)—and mentions the widowed proprietor of the Cherry House, Kate Cherry, whom both Crocker and Myst court. An ambush kills Norton mid-sentence; a well-dressed passenger assumes control of the coach and pursues the assassin, discovering blood but losing the trail. A female passenger vanishes mysteriously from the coach. The Sport (as he's called) arrives at Big Ledge with Norton's corpse as the camp gathers at Riata's Ranch, eager for the delayed payroll coach. Crocker and Bartol, the camp's ruling figures, question the mysterious newcomer about the attack; the marshal Dan Burgess is summoned from drunken sleep.