Beadle's Dime Novels No. 281: The Black Spy

The Black Spy; or, The Yellowstone Trail by Capt. "Bruin" Adams (1878) opens with a wager between Cuff Tompkins, a Black trapper claiming funds on deposit in St. Louis, and Long Ike, a weathered frontier hunter near the Upper Missouri. A tourist party en route to Fort Leavenworth has been attacked by Sioux warriors; two members—George Parham and Rosalie Blackwood—are missing, presumably captured. Despite Long Ike's warnings that the Sioux show particular hostility, Cuff insists on reconnoitering their camp across the river. He crosses in a canoe carrying a makeshift flag of truce fashioned from a handkerchief and ramrod. Long Ike observes from a cliff through his telescope, expecting Cuff's immediate death, but witnesses instead the darkey apparently welcomed and treated as a long-lost brother by the assembled Indians, surprising the cynical trapper entirely.