Black Pard; or, the Gold Boomers of the Big Horn

This 1896 Beadle and Adams dime novel features "Buffalo Bill's Black Pard," by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham. Buffalo Bill, Chief of Scouts at Fort Fetterman, riding through Wyoming wilderness on official dispatches, hears repeated calls for help. He discovers a Black man named Beelzebub—six feet four inches tall, armed with rifle and knife—stranded on a cliff above a hundred-foot drop. Beelzebub claims he has been searching for Buffalo Bill after being sent to find him. Weak from starvation and wounds sustained fighting two Shoshone Indians who attacked him, he reveals he killed both in hand-to-hand combat using a knife. Buffalo Bill provides food and water, buries the Indian bodies respectfully in a valley meadow, tends Beelzebub's injuries, and prepares camp. The narrative emphasizes Bill's compassionate character and Beelzebub's desperate circumstances, establishing the foundation for their partnership.