Evening star., 1930-06-22

returned to their homes with taste for the
Beadle books. The market was doubled. New
authors must be had. Beadle secured the
country for prolific writer's. Finally he went
West The wilderness" west Of the Mississippi
was newly opened up and out there were scores
of picturesque characters. Those who could
write signed up. Those who could not write
agreed to dictate their most thrilling yarns to
hack writer's. The Army men and the scouts
came into the fold like sheep. Capt Monastery
capt Frederick Whitaker, Lieut.. j. H Ron
dolph, Maj. Henry Stoddard Lieut.. Alfred
Thorne, Ensign Charles Dudley Warner Capt
d. B. Shields-scores of them were listed ON
the Beadle roll. Then there were the plains
men and the scouts, J. B. Omohundro better
known as Texas Jack; Maj. St. Vrain, Col.
Prentiss Ingraham, Joseph Badger, Dr. Carver
7. G. Harbough, even Buffalo Bill
And with these new writer's came the real
thrilers. There had been exciting novels be-
fore this on the Beadle list, but none of the
Indian atrocities or narrow escapes of the
Eastern scouts and heroes could measure up
with these tales by the men who had tramped
the Rockies from end to end faced grizzlies
and Comanches. Blackfeet and Apaches fought
MexicanS and highwaymen and courted death
almost every day of their lives So now there
came such books as "Dick Darling the Pony
Expressman"; THE Pony Express Rider"
Buffalo Bills Bet" "The Deaths Head Rang
ers of Texas" Oregon Sol' THE Yellow
Chief" and, Gaping them all, "Deadwood
Dick, the Prince of the Road"
Deadwood Dick like many of the heroes of
these dime novels, was a real character. Rich
ard Clarke was his real name and he had first
proved his mettle in helping pilot a group Of
emigrants from Minnesota to South Dakota
Along the trail his unerring aim in fighting off
Indians earned for him the sobriquet Dead
shot Dick" but when the town of Deadwood
was founded Clarkes name was altered to mt
the circumstances. Thereafter he was Dead
wood Dick"
The real Deadwood Dick, in his earlier years.
was typical plainSman. staggering. boaSting
always ready for excitement handy with fists
or guns and chivalrous as the traditional
painsman-that is to the nth degree. He
drove a stagecoach he worked as a miner, he
rode the pony express, he was a member Of a
vigilante band. He hobnobbed with notorious
characters, was friend of Wild Bill Hickock,
one-time two-gun marshal of Abilene, Kans.
He knew Buffalo Bill, Capt. Jack Crawford,
Texas Jack and all the others. He was, as all
the rest, colorful figure, and he had color
ful name.
1t was this name that brought him into
fiction Edward Wheeler heard it and was
inspired. He inquired heard some vivid stories
of the West some stories about Deadwood
Dick and he wrote a novel. Beadle published
wrote another and another, and yet another
1t grew into a Deadwood Dick series and In
time it became the Deadwood Dick Library
with weekly issues
1t was a strange coincidence that Wheeler
should have started the Deadwood Dick vogue
and built up the legend about the man, for
in his later years the real Deadwood Dick was
as shy and retiring Mr. Wheeler seems to
have been much OF his life. Prom pictures of
him. Edward Wheeler is seen to be a frail,
esthetic-lOoking man, almost an invalid. His
face was pale, his shoulders narrow, his hands
soft. Yet this man. whose fingers probably
never so much as gripped a gun, turned out
these marvellous thrillers about a heroic Dead
wood Dick, took him through thousand gun
fights rescued him from them ALL made him
fall in love hundreds of times and happily
married him at least score of times-wrOte
perhaps, 5000. 900 words about him.
But hair raising fictions were not the whole
of Beadles books There were biographies
that would make your flesh creep Historical
remances fiourished the Gulf pirates were ex-
plotted, the Civil War. the Seminole War, the
French and Indian War and all the Western
Indian wars. Aiken wrote the story Of Kit
CaTsOns life. Joseph Badger wrote an auto.
biography under the guise of biography by