The late nineteenth century saw the rise of the Indian-scout detective in such stories as those of Judson Taylor (Phil Scott, the Indian Detective, 1882), Buffalo Bill Cody (Red Reynard, the Indian Detective, 1886), T. C. Harbaugh (Velvet Foot, the Indian Detective, 1884), The Old Sleuth (Pawnee Tom, 1896), and others. The native heroes of these stories grew out of the real-life tradition of the native scout assisting military expeditions and campaigns in the west. In 1946 Manly Wade Wellman's native detective David Return appeared in an Ellery Queen Monthly Magazine short story entitled "A Star for a Warrior." However, it was not until the 1970s that the modern Native American detective became a featured figure, thanks to the works of Tony Hillerman (the Chee and Leaphorn Navajo series), Brian Garfield (the Sam Watchman Navajo novels), and Richard Martin Stern (the Joe Ortiz Apache series).

Hillerman's Chee-Leaphorn series is a western...