Beadle's Pocket Novels No. 232: Jabez Hawk

JABEZ HAWK, THE YANKEE SPY This 1888 Beadle and Adams pocket novel by C. Dunning Clark begins in early colonial Virginia. The opening chapter depicts a violent struggle between Arthur Swayne, an educated young white man, and Manton, a Shawnee warrior, over a dead deer. During their extended hand-to-hand combat, Swayne's clothing tears, revealing a mysterious blue tattoo—a broad arrow—on his shoulder. Recognition of this mark causes Manton to immediately cease fighting and submit to Swayne, revealing the symbol holds sacred significance among the Shawnees. Manton hints cryptically that Swayne's father has a dark past with the tribe, involving deaths and kidnapping. The encounter ends with the arrival of Jabez Hawk, a Yankee peddler from Massachusetts, who interrupts them while whittling and hawking patent medicines. Hawk begins the narrative proper, his colloquial Massachusetts dialect contrasting sharply with the frontier setting.