Beadle's New Dime Novels: The Young Mustanger

This is a catalog listing from Beadle and Adams publishers accompanied by the opening chapter of *The Young Mustanger; or, The Red Terror of Texas* by Will Dexter. The catalog presents their "Popular Dime Hand-Books" series, priced at ten cents each, including Standard School Series offerings (elocution speakers and dialogues for declamation), Young People's Series (etiquette, letter-writing, games, dancing instruction, and dream interpretation), and Family Series (cooking and medical guides). The featured serial novel opens with two young mustang hunters—the renowned Lasso Jack (barely twenty, described as "a perfect model of manhood") and his companion Henry St. Elmo—fleeing across a Texan prairie pursued by a war-party of over sixty Comanche warriors on ponies. The youths, armed with lassos and bordermen's weapons, race toward the San Saba timber for cover while debating whether their horses can escape. They discover a stream blocking their path and observe what appears to be Apache warriors hidden in the opposite brush, suggesting a three-way conflict as Comanches and Apaches are at war.