Beadle's Dime Novels No. 219: The Scioto Scouts

About this issue

The Scioto Scouts: or, The Shawnees' Decoy (No. 219) by Edward Willett is a frontier adventure novella set in 1790 on the Kentucky-Ohio frontier. Buck Hardnett, a seasoned scout and state spy employed by Colonel George Rogers Clark, discovers a band of fifty Shawnee warriors encamped near the Scioto River mouth, planning to ambush emigrant boats traveling downriver. Among them is a captive white settler bearing whipping scars. Hardnett teams with Red Hawk, a noble Delaware chief-without-followers who calls the scout "Heavy Hand," to intercept and warn incoming boats before launching a counteroffensive. The narrative emphasizes frontier woodcraft details—stealth, tracking, sensory awareness—and the loyal partnership between the white scout and his Indian ally as they prepare to thwart the Shawnee attack on the spring emigrant migration to Kentucky settlements.