Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 158

Catalog Note This issue contains "Fancy Frank, of Colorado: or, The Trapper's Trust" by William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody. The serial follows two intertwined narratives: Mark Sanford, a disgraced frontiersman living on the Colorado plains, accidentally shoots a dying woman fleeing from Indian attack and assumes responsibility for her young child. Simultaneously, an enigmatic young girl known as "Red Plume" or "The Hermit Huntress" arrives at Fort McPherson to warn General Emory that Lieutenant Rockwell and twenty cavalry are besieged in a canyon by Old Whistler's Dog Soldier Sioux. She conditions her rescue aid on the release of condemned soldier Richard Sanford, who faces execution for killing a fellow officer in a card dispute. Though neither has previously met, General Emory grants her terms. The narrative combines frontier adventure, supernatural elements, and mystery regarding the connections between these characters.