Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 295

FEARLESS PHIL: OR, THE KING OF QUARTZVILLE By Edward Willett, serialized in this Beadle and Adams weekly issue (Vol. XII). This western adventure opens in a mining camp where young Bert Otis and David Darke, partners seeking fortune as prospectors and hunters, reveal a deception: Otis has agreed to help capture a train and abduct a young woman for the outlaw Arkansas Pete, but plans instead to rescue her. Darke agrees to join the scheme. The narrative shifts to the westward-bound wagon train carrying Mabel Vintrey, who is traveling to join her father. Eighteen-year-old Phil Henning, a trainman with rifle and revolver, grows suspicious when guide Sam Spurl deliberately leads the train off course northward toward Mike Garry's Branch. When Phil questions Spurl's route, the guide becomes hostile. A confrontation erupts as Spurl attacks Phil, who draws his revolver in self-defense, establishing Phil as the "fearless" protagonist.