Dick Dashaway; or, A Dakota Boy in Chicago

This 1882 Beadle and Adams pulp serial, Dick Dashaway; or, A Dakota Boy in Chicago by Charles Morris, follows a brash young western frontiersman who arrives in Chicago seeking employment. Dick, dressed in frontier attire and possessing unshakeable confidence, interrupts a private meeting between merchant Richard Gordon and a rough sea captain named Sparks, who are discussing a cryptic shipping arrangement involving a vessel called the Rover. Dick demands a job; after an altercation with Sparks, he produces a letter of introduction from Howard Brown. Gordon's demeanor suddenly shifts to suspicious politeness upon reading the letter, and he agrees to employ Dick while muttering darkly about buried secrets surfacing after twenty years. The narrative establishes Dick as an adventure-ready protagonist while hinting at Gordon's sinister intentions toward him.