Beadle's Dime Library No. 569

This installment of the serialized novel Captain Cobra; or, The Quickened Dead by Captain Howard Holmes appeared in Beadle and Adams's dime novel publication (September 18, 1889). Set in the Santa Barbara Hills region of Southern California, the narrative follows the mysterious hooded rider Captain Cobra, whose bowie-knife-pierced warnings terrorize miners. Sam Shott, a twenty-two-year-old mine-king who founded the prosperous mining town of Santa Leo, pursues Cobra to the coast with companions Basil Braddock and Mark, hoping to glimpse the hidden face. Though Shott nearly succeeds in spying the revealed features, Cobra flees before he can see clearly. Concurrently, in Santa Leo's Cold Deck saloon, Don Caddo ("the Carquinez Cat") confronts the Red Cardinal and his gang of desperados, the Silver Serpents, over an unspecified dispute. The Red Cardinal—reportedly a defrocked priest turned outlaw—then appears at Dolores's home, startling her and her mother.