Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 1038

About this issue

This June 1897 Beadle and Adams Half-Dime Library publication presents "Red-Hand, or The Red Right Hand," credited to Buffalo Bill. The serial follows Red-Hand the Scout, a pale-face hunter in the Black Hills with a blood-red right hand, who shoots and kills a man named Boyd Bernard—a recognition fraught with complex emotions (hatred, sorrow, triumph, remorse). Red-Hand buries Bernard beneath a tree and carves his epitaph. That night, he hears a woman singing from a rocky shelf above Bernard's grave, calling out Bernard's name. Startled, Red-Hand flees in fear. Five years pass. Red-Hand now serves as guide for a band of miners exploring the Black Hills for gold, as the country becomes known as the "Miner's New Eldorado." Returning to Bernard's grave, Red-Hand notes signs of other visitors. Following a trail from the grave, he hears rifle shots and Sioux war-cries in a narrow gulch, where he witnesses an unexpected sight requiring further narrative development.