Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 887

The Texan Detective This serialized Western pulp adventure, by Lieutenant A. K. Sims, concerns Mesquite Mat and his associates—corrupt county commissioners engaged in a bounty-fraud scheme, repeatedly claiming payments on coyote scalps worth five dollars each, pocketing ten thousand dollars through recycling the same pelts. The "Sport from Spokane," detective Caleb Strong posing as a cattle buyer, arrives to assist Judge Gilbert Gale in exposing these criminals and their affiliated gang, the masked road agents called the Lone Stars. Strong witnesses Judge Gale apparently murdered, then discovers the newspaper editor Diana Temple and Gale's daughter Gladys coordinating response efforts. Weasel William, a small-time informant, infiltrates Gale's household eavesdropping for Mesquite Mat, to whom he's recently pledged allegiance under threat. The narrative interweaves frontier detective work with political corruption and outlaw violence.