In late March of 1873, as the Scouts of the Prairie prepared to make their New York City debut at Niblo's Garden on Broadway, a new dime novel by Ned Buntline was published in Street & Smith's New York Weekly.
"Texas Jack, the White King of the Pawnees" was a highly fictionalized version of Jack's life, but contained enough truth that Jack must have spoken at length with Buntline about his time as a soldier, as a cowboy, and as a hunter of buffalo alongside his friends in the Pawnee tribe there in Nebraska.
Texas Jack had already been a kind of plains celebrity, well known for his adventures, skirmishes with Comanche in Texas and Sioux in Nebraska, and unparalleled skill as a hunter and scout. National newspapers had reported on his lasso skill when he captured buffalo for the Niagara Falls Museum's Grand Buffalo Hunt. But this book thrust him into the national spotlight. He already stood shoulder to shoulder with his friend Buffalo Bill, both on trail and on stage, but now he was elevated in the minds of the readers who anxiously awaited ever subsequent installment in Buntline's tale.
