Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 964

# "The Black Shadower's Sublime Sacrifice" ## A Buffalo Bill Story by Col. Prentiss Ingraham

This frontier adventure serial opens with Buffalo Bill witnessing a massacre from a ridge overlooking a valley encampment. Uniformed cavalry soldiers, led by a young officer, execute a peaceful emigrant train—killing an older man, his refined wife, teenage son, and enslaved family members—in what the officer calls a "wipe-out." The soldiers attempt to shoot an unconscious thirteen-year-old girl survivor, but the rank-and-file men mutiny, refusing to kill her despite escalating monetary bribes from their commander. The officer relents after his men unite against him.

A wealthy Black horseman—armed with rifle, machete, bow, and ornate silver-adorned equipment—witnesses the slaughter from above but restrains himself from intervening, choosing instead to live for revenge. He observes from hiding as the soldiers regroup, establishing that the girl will survive, at least temporarily, in the murderers' custody.