Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 349

# Lion-Hearted Dick: The Gentleman Road Agent

This serial by Albert W. Aiken, "A Wild Tale of California Adventure," follows a stagecoach holdup near California's Shasta region. The coach carries banker Allan Murdock and his daughter Carlotta, Colonel Wash Perkins (the postmaster, a heavy drinker), and Lee Sing (a Chinese gambler and laundyman). The refined stage driver, Indigo Jake, navigates tensions between Murdock and the colonel, who inexplicably claims Carlotta's face evokes distant memories. Murdock offers liquor to his traveling companions with a "strange expression." The stage is then halted by a masked road-agent with accomplices; the outlaw addresses Jake cordially but threatens violence if passengers resist. The outlaw claims knowledge of his victims and hints at deliberate targeting. Murdock and the others must now decide whether to surrender or fight.