Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 375

1884 · 16 pages

This Beadle and Adams weekly (1884) features "Chiota, the Creek: or, The Three Thunderbolts," a western serial by Major Sam S. Hall, writing as "Buckskin Sam." Set in 1860s Texas near the Bandera Hills, it chronicles the Bancroft family—patriarch Ben, his son William ("Bandera Bill"), and sixteen-year-old daughter Bertie, living on an isolated ranch on the Rio Medina despite threats from Apache, Comanche, and Mexican raiders. The narrative provides detailed frontier domestic arrangements before launching its action sequence: Bertie, an accomplished horsewoman and sharpshooter with poetic sensibilities, ventures onto the prairie on her mustang "Colorado," then into riverside timber to fish. While standing on a log near the bank with her catch, she encounters a venomous moccasin snake coiled between her and safety, rendering her paralyzed with fear as the serpent prepares to strike. The serial breaks at this moment of peril.

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