The Sky Demon; or, Rainbolt the Ranger

This April 1883 Beadle and Adams weekly dime novel features "The Sky Demon; or, Rainbolt, the Ranger" by Oll Coomes. The story opens with a plot by notorious Black Hills robber-captain Duval Dungarvon and renegade Cheyenne chief Blufe Brandon to abduct Silvia Sanford for ransom. Colonel Sanford departs Omaha by train with his daughter and four companions heading to San Francisco. Brandon orchestrates an Indian attack on the train using signal flashes across mountain peaks; during the chaos, he abducts Silvia and vanishes into a mountain defile. Colonel Sanford, an experienced Indian-fighter and former cavalry commander, pursues with the young men. They encounter Ebony Jim, a Black man Sanford previously hunted, and Flick O'Flynn, an Irish companion, camped in the Black Hills—suggesting past shared involvement in a crime at Devil's Tarn.