Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 248

Sierra Sam's Secret; or, The Bloody Footprints This serialized western adventure by Edward L. Wheeler (author of the Deadwood Dick series) opens during a violent mountain storm on June 10th. A masked rider known as Phantom Phil rescues a small girl from the gulch, learning she belongs to White Eagle, a respected Handsome Half-breed reportedly holding a secret mine of wealth. Phil discovers White Eagle imprisoned at McGurdy's disreputable ranch, supposedly ill with smallpox but actually being poisoned by a female "doctor" attending him. White Eagle reveals his past: seven years prior he married Clio Carlyle after lending her father fifty thousand dollars, but she abandoned him after learning he wouldn't divulge his wealth secrets. Now a belle in Washington engaged to another, she's had their illegitimate daughter placed in an asylum. White Eagle gives Phil an iron cryptogram box—openable only by the child—containing proof of identity and his secrets. Phil rescues the girl and escapes through a window. Chapter II introduces an old frontiersman preventing a young man's suicide at a prairie rift.