Beadle's Pocket Library No. 440: The Death Shot

Catalog Note: "The Death Shot; or, The Spring of the Tiger" by Jos. E. Badger, Jr. This dime novel installment features a frontier crime narrative. A well-dressed young man named Al Carpenter conspires with three rough criminals—Gabe Burke, Simon Roach, and Hard Hackney—to ambush Cliff Ward and his sweetheart Louisa Brady at a riverside meeting. Carpenter, rejected by Louisa in favor of Ward, pays the men to capture Ward and "settle his hash." The conspirators surprise the lovers at the broken oak overlooking the river, bind Ward, and seize Louisa. Despite her pleas invoking Carpenter's dead mother and Ward's threats of vengeance, Carpenter declares his intention to marry her "willing or unwilling" and orders Burke and Roach to kill Ward and dispose of his body in the river. As Louisa faints, Carpenter carries her away into the forest while the gunshot presumably executes Ward. The narrative emphasizes Carpenter's transformation from spurned suitor to vengeful villain.