Beadle's Dime Library No. 909

# Museum Catalog Note

Red Butterfly, or Buffalo Bill's League (1896), serialized by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, follows a fugitive miner pursued across the Western plains by the outlaw gang the Red Buzzards, led by Kit Quantrel. Cornered among rocks, the miner defends himself with limited ammunition until rescued by Patolla, a Sioux medicine-chief, and the chief's young daughter Go-won-go. Patolla is mortally wounded; before dying, he attempts to kill his daughter to prevent her suffering his fate, but the miner stops him. The chief dies requesting the white man serve as guardian to Go-won-go, called "the Red Butterfly." After the attack, the miner mercifully treats a captured Red Buzzard named Poker Jack, who confesses his criminal past: having killed a man over a woman, escaped jail by assaulting a chaplain, and subsequently joined the outlaw band. The miner permits Jack to loot his dead companions' valuables before departing.