Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 175

This issue of Beadle and Adams' weekly contains the serialized Western adventure "Captain Arizona, the King Pin of Road-Agents; or, Patent-Leather Joe's Big Game" by Philip S. Warne, subtitled "A Romance of Wild Mountain Life."

In the opening chapters, the road-agent Captain Arizona and his accomplices—Golconda Saul and Jimmie Madden—stop a stagecoach on the Overland route through the Sierra Nevada. Arizona, described as an elegant forty-year-old outlaw with daring eyes and the sobriquet "Arizona of the Iron Heart," forces the elderly millionaire Stephen Rensalier to perform humiliating musical acts while singing hymns. Aboard the coach is the young, beautiful, and fearless Hortense Rensalier (the millionaire's niece, not wife), who captures Arizona's attention. He questions her privately, discovering she is his long-lost sister thought dead. Arizona departs mysteriously after apologizing for his treatment of her uncle. The narrative suggests Arizona's true identity and past connections to "Patent-Leather Joe" or "Flash Lightning" will be revealed.