Captain Fly-by-Night

# Catalog Note

This 1891 Beadle and Adams dime novel presents "The Colorado King-Pin; or, The Cowboys on the War-path" by Joseph E. Badger Jr., a Western adventure serial. The narrative opens with C. F. B. Knight, a dapper stranger on a black stallion named Wolf, arriving at the Colorado ranch of Frank Ellis, a retired army officer. Knight claims his horse can run a mile in 1:40, an extraordinary time, and proposes a wager: if Wolf achieves this feat, Ellis will pay $2,000; if not, Knight demands nothing. Ellis accepts skeptically. The plot involves Knight's mysterious confidence in the untested horse, Ellis's practical skepticism, and the appearance of Ellis's daughter Lina, who witty deflates Knight's boasting about the animal's ungainly appearance. Knight himself is characterized as a dashing but financially desperate racing man, well-versed in thoroughbred bloodlines and track experience, carrying fine weapons despite his poverty. The fragment establishes themes of horsemanship, gambling, and frontier characters locked in negotiation.