Poster advertising Mexican Joe's Wild West Show

Courtesy Heritage Auctions

This is the second volume by Tom Cunningham and continues the story of Mexico Joe Shelley and his Wild west show that toured the United Kingdom. This volume opens with a report on an attempt on the life of Mexican Joe by an Indian known as Running Wolf in November 1887. Newspaper reports stated this had been the fourth attempt of Running Wolf to shoot his employer. To what extent that this was a publicity stunt is discussed given that at the time Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show was touring England. Running Wolf, it was claimed was an Apache who was a fearsome savage with seventy scalps to his name and had been a member of Geronimo's band who had broken out of the reservation in 1886.