Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 27

This issue of *Beadle's Half-Dime Library* (Vol. II, No. 27, 1878) contains the beginning of "Antelope Abe, the Boy Guide" by Oll Coomes, author of "The Dumb Spy" and "Vagabond Joe." The frontier adventure follows eighteen-year-old Antelope Abe, a skilled scout and marksman, as he flees pursuing Indians across the Des Moines prairie. After killing several warriors in a running gunfight, Abe is ambushed and lassoed by concealed Indians. He's captured and confronted by Tim Bodsford, a white outlaw renegade who demands information about a girl Abe allegedly stole. Forced to fight Bodsford before a ring of fifty savages, Abe uses gymnastic kicks—including a backflip—to defeat the larger man twice and escape through the resulting chaos. Pursued again on foot, Abe races toward distant timber but discovers he's running toward the "Wolf's Mouth," a catastrophic mile-long chasm thirty to fifty feet wide with no apparent means of crossing. Trapped between the pursuing Indians and Bodsford on mounted horses, his situation appears hopeless.