Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 787

# Buffalo Bill's Dead Shot

This November 1893 Beadle and Adams dime novel by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham opens with Buffalo Bill, "the Buckskin King," meeting Lord St. John Mildmay, an English officer bearing introduction from an old army friend. Mildmay seeks Buffalo Bill's aid on a crucial mission: locating his friend Captain Trevor De Villers, who disappeared in the American Sierra mining country years ago after romantic disappointment in India. Mildmay must obtain proof of De Villers's death or find his remains, as a man now condemned to death in England—claiming the name Tremain Villers—appears identical to him. Mildmay believes the prisoner a fraud based on subtle physiological differences, particularly in the eyes: De Villers inherited his father's gray, piercing eyes combined with his mother's blue, gentle ones. Mildmay engages Buffalo Bill and the plainsman Haphazard Harry to organize an expedition into dangerous frontier territory to resolve the matter, upon which hinges inheritance of a considerable English estate and family honor.