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Beadle's Dime Library No. 518
This Beadle & Adams dime novel serial installment, published September 26, 1888, presents "Long Pete Jenkins' Decoy" by John W. Osbon. Two disreputable gamblers, Oscar Monshall and Dave Danton, are expelled from Elephant Lode after winning twenty thousand dollars from a man named Richard Royale. Robbed by road agents on the trail to Paradise Gulch, they discover Monshall hid the genuine currency in his boot-heel. A mysterious horseman arrives, introducing himself as Dick Brazzleton, twin brother of outlaw Bill Brazzleton and himself a card sharp known as "Royal Richard of the Red Hand." He cryptically claims Royale is dead. The installment concludes with Danton suspicious that Brazzleton's story contradicts his knowledge of Bill Brazzleton, and Monshall speculating whether Royale survives and Brazzleton is a spy—or Brazzleton is actually Royale himself.