The Detective Road-Agent

This 1890 issue of *Beadle's Dime Novels* features "The Detective Road-Agent: The Miners of Sassafras City" by Ed. L. Wheeler, author of the *Deadwood Dick* series. The narrative opens in the bar-room of the Leonard House at Sassafras City mining camp, where the brutish bullwhacker Tiger Tooth harasses a Chinese laborer named Rats, demanding information about a secret gold mine. When young tenderfoot Edward Temple objects, Tiger Tooth challenges him to a fight. Their brawl is interrupted by a mysterious figure called "A No. 1," a sophisticated road-agent who intervenes at gunpoint, then robs all patrons of fifty dollars. Later, Simon Shields, the camp's wealthiest mine owner, attempts to arrange his pretty eighteen-year-old daughter Jessie's marriage to cousin Edward, but she refuses, declaring she wants a spirited, dashing hero. The robbery by A No. 1 creates excitement throughout camp and becomes a topic of discussion at Oregon Bill's Melodeon saloon.