Beadle's Dime Library, No. 261

This October 1888 pulp magazine issue features Black Sam, the Prairie Thunderbolt; or, The Bandit-Hunters, a Southwest frontier serial by Colonel Jo Yards ("Virginia Jo"). The story follows Black Sam, a Black scout at Fort B—— near the Rio Grande, and Lieutenant Richard Moore as they pursue Hernan Balboaz, a notorious Mexican bandit and cattle-raider leading approximately 100 Apache and Mexican outlaws. After Sam reports a raid fifty miles upriver where ranchers' herds and horses were stolen and buildings burned, Colonel Harrison dispatches the two men to track Balboaz and prevent his river crossing. Riding across the Texas prairie, they spot the stolen cattle herd and pursue it, only to be chased by Balboaz's outriders. Under moonlight, Moore and Sam flee on horseback across the darkening plains, approaching what appears to be a river crossing.