Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 19

The Prairie Outlaw by Gustave Aimard

This frontier adventure serial opens in the Mexican wilderness near the Rio Grande. The narrative begins with sociopolitical commentary on Mexico's class divisions and internal instability, then introduces a well-armed horseman of evident high station—identified as Don Miguel Zarate—riding into dense forest. Aimard provides elaborate period costume description: embroidered green cloth pelisse, silver-trimmed breeches, damascened rifle, and ornate saddle appointments.

Zarate waits in a clearing, smoking maize cigarettes. Two jaguars emerge—first one crouched on a cypress branch, then a second larger beast. Rather than flee, Zarate engages both predators. When two companions, including someone named Valentine, arrive, the first jaguar is shot through the eye mid-leap; Zarate kills the second with his knife in close combat, driving the blade through its heart. The men collect firewood as night falls over the forest, with coyotes howling in the darkness.