Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 423

# "The Recreants of the Red River"

This installment introduces The Lone Hand, a western frontier story by Albert W. Aiken, serialized in this December 1, 1886 issue of this weekly publication (ten cents per copy).

The narrative follows two outlaws, Wildcat Jack (formerly Jackson Smackover) and Big Black Bill (William Corkinham), holed up in a hidden log cabin on an island in the Red River region of Arkansas. Jack is the cunning leader; Bill provides brute force. Post-Civil War desperados with reputations, they were once guerrilla fighters and now survive through robbery, tolerated by locals who fear their guns.

As rain persists on the third day, the pair discuss dwindling supplies—salt pork nearly gone, whisky consumed—and await two confederates who should bring money and provisions. Jack's sharp watch-dog alerts them to approaching visitors, whom Jack assumes are their expected men rather than lawmen.