Six-Foot Sol, the Sharp-Shooter

"Johnny on the Spot; or, A Story of Grizzly Gulch" This serialized western by Wm. R. Eyster, from *Beadle and Adams' Half-Dime Library* (October 6, 1896), follows a resourceful youth in a mining camp setting. The protagonist, a dapper young man of eighteen with aristocratic bearing, subdues the coach driver Keno Charley with a revolver to extract information about a planned robbery. Boarding a stage to Grizzly Gulch with the beautiful Miss Myrtle Mabilee, he cleverly prevents a roadside holdup despite four suitors competing for the lady's attention—Judge Johnson, Deacon Westbridge, Sport McKenzie, and Abiram Weintzheimer. During the escape, the coach becomes dangerously out of control on a mountain descent. The driver abandons his post, and the youth performs acrobatic feats on the speeding coach to prevent catastrophe, while attempting to protect Miss Mabilee and manage the conflicting passengers.