Beadle's New York Dime Library, Vol. IV, No. 46

# Catalog Entry

Bowie-Knife Ben: The Little Hunter of the Nor'-West and The Exiles of the Valley of Shadows by Oll Coomes

This issue opens with "Bowie-Knife Ben," a frontier adventure serial. Scout and dwarf hunter Ben leads a party (Chris Proctor, Irishman Larry O'Ray, Martin Sawyer, and Cloudy Tom) across a Minnesota prairie during a snowstorm to rescue fellow hunter Nathan Reeve, captured by Sioux warriors. During their pursuit, they glimpse a mysterious phantom giant. Finding the Indian camp, Ben executes a daring rescue: he strangles one warrior and impersonates him while retrieving firewood. When the fire flares, the Indians discover their captive missing and a severed warrior's head hanging from a tree. Ben kills the chief with a thrown bowie-knife before escaping with Nathan and his party. The narrative emphasizes Ben's exceptional knife-throwing accuracy and physical prowess despite his diminutive stature. The OCR becomes illegible before "The Exiles of the Valley of Shadows" develops substantively.