A complete, restored issue of Pulp Fiction from 1881 — all 16 pages of painted-cover fiction magazines that launched science fiction, horror, and hardboiled crime, free to page through at ComicBooks.com.

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A complete issue · 16 pages · 1881

Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 194

1881 · Free to read

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About this issue

Buffalo Bill's Bet: The Gambler Guide by Capt. Alfred B. Taylor is a Western romance serialized in this pulp magazine. The narrative follows Kent King, a skilled gambler and fugitive held prisoner by a band of Texas cattle herders transporting him toward execution in Texas. Desperate to escape before reaching Santa Fe, King bribes his guard, Poker Dick, offering nine hundred pesos and diamonds in exchange for freedom. After Dick allows him to slip his bonds, King strikes him unconscious and flees on his horse Mephisto into the moonlit prairie, pursued by Captain Dash and twenty Texans offering a thousand-peso reward. The escape succeeds when Dash's injured mare cannot match Mephisto's speed. Poker Dick later confesses his betrayal to the captain, revealing King's bribery and his own moral anguish over the treachery.

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