Beadle's Dime Novels No. 251: The Fire-Eater

This magazine issue contains two dime novels. "The Prairie Scourge; or, The Jaguar Pane," by W. J. Hamilton, is a romance set in Arapaho country near Santa Fe. It concerns a band of renegade white men led by Ingoldsby who terrorize the plains; a beautiful young woman (Ingoldsby's niece) who lives among them with a pet jaguar; and frontier scouts including Tim Badger who work to eliminate the outlaw gang. "The Fire-Eater; or, The Texan's Revenge," by Edward Willett, begins in a Texas tavern where the protagonist Charles Archer demonstrates remarkable feats of marksmanship and sleight-of-hand—shooting out a candle flame, throwing a knife with precision, and swallowing and regurgitating the blade—impressing rough frontiersmen. Archer becomes fascinated by a mysterious, refined young woman glimpsed at the tavern, whose gentle features and melancholy demeanor contrast sharply with her rough surroundings.