The Dime Library: The Man from Denver

Catalog Note: Beadle and Adams, No. 974 (1897) "The Man From Denver" by Joseph E. Badger, Jr., an adventure serial in the dime-novel tradition, opens with a dramatic stagecoach robbery en route to Deadwood. Driver Reddy Wilson navigates treacherous terrain while passenger Heber Kane attempts to maintain order. Masked bandits ambush the coach, shooting down a horse and forcing surrender. During the robbery, old Cephas Copeland becomes inexplicably desperate to recover a plug of tobacco the robbers discover, attacking one bandit over the item. Before the situation escalates fatally, an armed rider arrives and drives off the outlaws through gunfire, arriving in time to prevent Copeland's murder. The rescuer confronts Kane with suspicion regarding his intentions toward the elderly man, while Copeland's niece expresses gratitude. The narrative combines Western action with mystery—Copeland's obsessive attachment to seemingly worthless tobacco suggests hidden significance, and Kane's nervous behavior and the robbers' amateurism hint at complications beyond a simple robbery.