Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 958

This issue of Beadle and Adams's weekly features a serial by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham titled "Death-Ride: The Mystery of the Black Mustang," starring Buffalo Bill (William F. Cody) as chief of scouts at Fort Farewell, Arizona. The narrative opens with Colonel Dearborn lamenting his fifteen-year-old son "Little Dick"—a skilled horseman and sharpshooter—who has vanished after riding alone despite warnings. Scouts report Indian capture. Major Fairbanks assures Dearborn that Buffalo Bill, recently returning from Santa Fe with dispatches, can locate the boy. The story then shifts to Buffalo Bill's solo journey through the Colorado River territory. Mistaken for one of a lawless gang camped at Lee's Ferry, he recognizes the deception and flees on horseback, triggering a chase as the gang pursues him up a mountain trail toward the plateau summit. The OCR degrades significantly thereafter.