Beadle's Dime Library No. 950

# Buffalo Bill at Bay: Or, The Gold-Seeker's Doom

This dime novel by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, serialized in Beadle's Half Dime Library (January 6, 1897), opens with Captain John Scott, a guide who has led a gold-prospecting expedition into wilderness, admitting his party is hopelessly lost on a barren plain. Starving and desperate, the miners—reduced from twenty to thirteen by Indians and sickness—demand Scott's execution, blaming him despite his discovery of the gold cache. Young Percy Willard alone defends Scott, but the maddened prospectors overwhelm him and Scott alike. They dig three graves, bury their gold in the deepest with the corpses of Scott and Willard above it, planning to retrieve it later. As Scott hangs, he curses his murderers with his dying breath. The narrative breaks before Willard's execution, with a figure mysteriously appearing—likely Buffalo Bill, referenced in the title.