Beadle's Dime Library No. 537

Blake, the Mountain Lion by Albert W. Aiken (Beadle & Adams, February 6, 1889) This Western adventure serial opens with the murder of Jackson Blake, a wealthy American gambler known as "the Fresh of Frisco," who is ambushed and killed near Chihuahua, Mexico by assailants seeking his money. His companion Ringwood identifies the body. The news reaches Isabel Escobedo, a Mexican woman institutionalized in a private asylum, who reveals Blake had been relentlessly pursuing her. Believing herself finally safe, she escapes the asylum disguised as a male herdsman and flees to France. Two years later, the narrative shifts to Slide Out, a small mining camp in Arizona's Mulepass district near Tombstone. A beautiful blonde Mexican girl of sixteen sits reading on a hillside overlooking the valley when she hears a noise in the tree above her.