Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 1161

*The Old Scout of the Woods*, serialized fiction by Oll Coomes, opening in this May 1905 pulp issue published by J. Vers & Co. for five cents. The narrative begins on Minnesota's Red River of the North, where veteran hunters Polar Sol and Old Dismal observe a mysterious forty-foot flatboat fitted with a mounted howitzer, wall-tents, canoes, and boarded sides. When three horsemen arrive—Captain Jack Rivers of the Army, his friend Joe Danvers, and Congo, a servant—they learn Rivers seeks his wounded post-trader brother. Danvers spots a bearded man aboard the raft and attempts to name him, but before speaking, the howitzer fires, decapitating Danvers. A second shot targets Rivers, who escapes by dropping flat. The three bury Danvers and resolve to follow the mysterious craft downriver to identify its occupants and avenge their companion. As evening falls, they track the raft toward a creek where the setting sun illuminates the waterway.