Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 778

This issue features "Highland Harry, the Wizard Rifleman; or, Tough Times at Teton Basin" by Oll Coomes, serialized frontier fiction. The narrative opens with two men—elderly mountaineer Uncle Bildad and the refined stranger David Hanover—approaching the settlement of Red Bar in Montana's Gallatin region. Bildad describes the village's respectable citizens and persistent troubles with outlaw Jack Hart's gang, who steal horses from the mountain settlements. As they travel, they witness an Indian attacking a young woman, Kitty Boyne, on horseback across the river. The mysterious youth Highland Harry intervenes with a rifle shot that kills the first attacker, then fires a second shot at the Indian holding Kitty captive. Both the captive and her assailant fall. The shot's accuracy prompts debate over whether Kitty survives or has been killed by Harry's remarkable marksmanship.