The Three Trappers

*The Three Trappers: The Apache Chief's Ruse* by Seelin Robins This frontier adventure serial follows young hunter Fred Wainwright as he flees pursuing Comanche riders across the Southwest prairie. After being spotted near the Gila River and mountains, Wainwright engages one attacker with rifle fire, kills him, then abandons his exhausted mustang by deploying it as a decoy while he escapes on foot under cover of darkness. Wainwright stumbles into a camp of two experienced trappers: George Harling, a Missouri-born hunter resembling Kit Carson, and Ward Lancaster, a fifty-year-old guide with an almost supernatural ability to locate water in arid regions. Both men offer hospitality despite Wainwright's abrupt arrival. Lancaster's navigation skills are attributed to an inexplicable instinct compared to similar gifts among Native American medicine men. The narrative establishes the three men as the titular trappers, positioned to face coming dangers together.