The Scarlet Shoulder

Catalog Note *The Scarlet Shoulders; or, The Miner Rangers* by Harry Hazard (Beadle and Adams, 1870) is a frontier adventure tale set at a Mexican hacienda. The narrative opens with a violent siege: after a peon sounds alarm of approaching hostile Indigenous warriors, Don Christobal Canelo and the hacienda's defenders barricade themselves inside against a large raiding party. The attackers possess a cannon, suggesting organized opposition rather than random violence. During the assault, Canelo discovers a traitor—peon Pepe Raymon—attempting to unbar a door for the enemy; the capataz executes him. Canelo forces his reluctant wife Luzecita to flee with their young son Felipe and a servant to the chaparral. As the final breach approaches, Canelo rallies the desperate defenders for hand-to-hand combat. The text breaks mid-climax as the enemy leader—revealed to speak Castilian, puzzling Canelo—fires upon him.