The Jaguar Queen

# The Jaguar Queen; or, The Outlaws of the Sierra Madre

This adventure novel by Frederick Whittaker (author of "The Mustang-Hunters" and "The Waltz Wizard") opens in the arid Stony Plains between New Mexico and Arizona. Gerald Leigh, a young traveler, pursues a legendary palm tree visible through mirages, hoping to locate water. His exhausted horse suffers from "the thumps" (heart disease); Leigh treats it by bloodletting and presses onward. Lured by centuries of Indian superstition—the Comanche legend of the "Spirit Tree" and "Tree of Death"—he discovers a hidden crater valley containing meadows, a lake, cattle, and distant firelight suggesting human habitation. The narrative combines frontier survival with elements of mystery and the supernatural, establishing a landscape of deceptive natural phenomena concealing a concealed oasis settlement.