Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 123

Beadle's Dime Novels, No. 123 (March 2, 1881) "The Renegades of the Border" by Francis Johnson This frontier adventure serial opens in an Arkansas forest where four men—the rough hunter Cotton, young Weston, respectable farmer Rawson, and the latecomer Johnson—convene to plan horse theft. Rawson, needing three hundred dollars by July to prevent foreclosure on his land, proposes stealing eight horses from a farmer named Hatfield near Spring Creek, promising a two-day lead on pursuers. The gang, who operate as professional stock thieves selling to buyers "on the island," debate logistics: two men will cross the Petit-Jean River with rifles and hidden bridles, having learned from past sales that improperly restrained horses arrive with mouth injuries. Tensions emerge as Cotton mocks Rawson's public piety while engaging in criminality, and Johnson insists on using an alias to avoid discovery. The narrative establishes these men as seasoned outlaws operating amid frontier settlement life.