Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 1097

Museum Catalog Entry This January 1900 issue of a Beadle & Adams pulp weekly contains "Rustling Rob, the Tramp's Protege; or, The Master of the Cedars" by Edward Lytton, an action serial illustrated with a dramatic engraving. The narrative opens at Deacon Samuel Hall's Virginia farm. The deacon disapproves of a lawn-party and dancing planned at nearby The Cedars estate by aristocratic landowner Algernon Agatha—whom the deacon considers a fallen Christian. Peters, a farmhand, arrives reporting a gang of twenty armed tramps camped by the Black Slough, led by a dangerous character named Jim Bloker. Cleopatra (nicknamed "Plucks"), the deacon's spirited fifteen-year-old daughter, disobeys orders to weed onions and goes fishing instead, falling into the river and drowning. A ragged young tramp named Rustling Rob jumps in and saves her. When Rob defends Plucks from the deacon's threatened whipping, confrontation escalates. The deacon summons farmhands Clem and Abe; Rob refuses to flee, facing three opponents.