Beadle's Pocket Novels No. 135: Karaibo

Karaibo; or, The Outlaw's Fate By J. Stanley Henderson Beadle and Adams, 1866

A Western adventure novel set in California's Sierra Nevada region. The story opens in a remote fonda (inn) where a scarred, boastful mountaineer named Burt Adams arrives and, while drinking, confesses to cold-blooded murder and robbery: he murdered a mestizo servant and an old man, stole gold and silver, and sold the man's daughter to Native Americans. A dark-skinned man named Karaibo and a well-dressed young man overhear this confession. The young man instructs Karaibo to follow Adams and report his whereabouts; both the old Mexican innkeeper and Karaibo depart to track him. Adams rides to a timber grove three miles distant, where he settles to sleep, positioning his horse as a sentinel. The trained animal detects approaching danger and attempts unsuccessfully to wake its master through neighing and shaking his blanket.