Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 768

This issue of Beadle and Adams' weekly (No. 768, April 12, 1892) features the serial "Eagle Ned, the Boy on Guard; or, The Camp Spiders of Ragged Robin," by T. C. Harbaugh, a Western adventure set in a mining camp at Black Mesa, Arizona. Eagle Ned, a mysterious seventeen-year-old boy searching for his lost sister, is tasked by the wealthy miner "The Count" to explore the Devil's Tunnel—a sealed mine passage reputed haunted by a Spanish monk's ghost. Crawling through the dark, foul-aired tunnel, Ned discovers a corpse: a man named Judah Meeks, stabbed in the neck months earlier and clutching a cryptic note. Meanwhile, above ground, the miner Lazarus—who had recently mocked Ned—is found murdered. Phocion, Ned's friend, discovers the body and searches for a leather string the dead man once wore. The murder sparks alarm throughout camp.