The Yankee Ranger

The Yankee Ranger: Dusky Darrell, the Yellowstone Trapper This issue's serial, by Edwin Emerson, follows two Boston cousins—Henry Rathburn (handsome, skilled horseman) and Adolphus Perkins (a foppish dandy with rings and diamond pin)—lost on the prairie after being chased by Indians. Seeking a campfire they've spotted, they encounter Dusky Darrell, a weathered forty-year-old trapper heading to the Yellowstone beaver grounds in buckskin and coonskin cap. After the cousins explain they were separated from a wagon train and survived an Indian attack, Darrell feeds them and agrees to guide them northward to his trapping grounds, despite warning them against interfering with his business. The narrative establishes both the contrast between the civilized easterners and the frontiersman and the framework for wilderness adventure.