The story of a resourceful hero who goes to the "underworld" or land of the dead to rescue a comrade or lover is an archetypal theme of Greek mythology, and it also appears in Celtic mythology, of which Faust was an avid reader. Faust used the theme for his ambitious narrative poem, "Dionysus in Hades" (1931), as has been noted, and it is one of the central myths underlying many of his western stories in the 1930s, perhaps first being used consciously in Dunmore's exploit in King of the Range (serialized 1929).

This mythic theme also appears in the Red Hawk trilogy, about Rusty Sabin, a "white Indian," which appeared in 1934-1935, and it shows up in some of the Silvertip stories.

The theme of a hero who leaves the United States for adventure south of the border had been used by Faust in several 1920s...