Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 540

# "The Buckskin Pards' Strange Quest" by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham

This serial adventure, published November 29, 1887, opens with two men—the villainous Tiger Tom and the mysterious Pard Kent—discovering a grave in a Texas canyon containing their dead captain, leader of the "Cowboy Pirates of the Rio Grande." A letter left with a ruby ring authorizes Tiger Tom to assume command, though Kent offers him a thousand dollars for the position. The narrative then shifts to a haunted ruined mission where a young woman, Senora Delporte, awaits news of Major Loring, who has pursued her enemy Ramon Delporte (alias outlaw chief San Cruz). The Buckskin Pards—twin scouts Night Hawk George and Broncho Bill Powell, accompanied by the Indian Wolf and the Negro Scraps—arrive without the major, prompting concern. The brothers resolve to search at dawn, establishing the story's central mystery and adventure premise.