Beadle's Dime Novels No. 90: Cast Away

About this issue

This issue contains two serials from Beadle and Company's dime novel line. "The Lost Cache," No. 91, by J. Stanley Henderson, is a western tale set in early Pike's Peak era. A captive of the Crow Indians discovers gold during his imprisonment and hides it; the story follows his efforts to recover the treasure, featuring multiple characters and incidents designed to sustain reader interest. The primary serial, "Cast Away: The Island Bride," No. 90, by Roger Starbuck, begins at sea in the South Pacific. Young sailor Harmon Weldon, mistreated by the tyrannical mate Dumps aboard the whaling ship Reindeer, falls asleep while standing watch in a boat. A rotten belaying-pin breaks, and the boat drifts away from the ship unnoticed. Weldon wakes to find himself alone on the ocean with minimal provisions—a keg of fresh water and sea biscuits. After losing his first biscuit to a shark, he rations his supplies carefully while navigating mounting seas. A gathering gale forces him to secure the boat and drift before increasingly violent waves.