Beadle's Pocket Library, No. 308

Catalog Note "Double-Fisted Mat; or, The Mystic California Giant" by Jos. E. Badger, Jr., is a frontier adventure narrative serialized in this Beadle and Adams weekly publication. The story follows six diamond-seekers operating in Apache territory near Arizona's Mogollon Range: the seasoned guide Matthew Anderson ("Double-Fisted Mat"), the taciturn James Cook (a six-and-a-half-foot-tall "Mystic California Giant" harboring mysterious secrets), and four younger men from Kansas, Indiana, and Virginia. After a month of fruitless diamond hunting, Cook theorizes they may find gold instead in a dried streambed's white pipe-clay. During night watch, Paul Jayne narrowly escapes an arrow shot by an unidentified assailant; Mat's tracking reveals a woman's footprints rather than an Apache warrior's, suggesting warning rather than attack. Despite the danger, the party decides to investigate Cook's gold prospect immediately, hoping to leave with profits.