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Updated: June 7, 2025
He turned his back upon the grave and went about the fulfilment of that vow as ambitious men go about the making of careers; and in the days that followed, while his swarthy company was sweeping through California like fire on a chaparral hillside when the wind is high, he gained a dark fame, so lasting that there is hardly an old settled community from Mount Shasta to the Mexican line which has not some tale of the bandit, Joaquin Murieta.
From Stockton the two companies of bandits fled southward up the San Joaquin valley and brought more than fifty thousand dollars in gold-dust to Arroyo Cantoova. Then Murieta took seventy men and rode back to make his final raid on the placer camps. Three-Fingered Jack went by his side: the only human being whose companionship he shared.
As the months went by suspicion that these different bands were working under one leader grew to certainty among the longer-headed officers. Then the name of Joaquin Murieta began to be spoken as that of the mysterious chief.
Before he could reach his saddle one of the company had pulled up between him and the weapons. Captain Love was leaning from his horse questioning Three-Fingered Jack. Murieta took another step toward his weapons; the ranger stopped him with a gesture; he halted, glanced at Captain Love, and scowled. "If you have any questions to ask," he cried, "I am leader of this party. Talk to me."
They were on their way out from some winter diggings, they told him, and they had plenty of dust with them. He spoke of Joaquin Murieta and they pointed to their belts; they were heavily armed, every man of them. Why should they fear the bandit?
And as they slowly came toward him, their rifles ready to fly to their shoulders at the first suspicious movement, Joaquin Murieta swayed slightly and sank slowly into a heap near the dead mare. The breath was gone from his body when they reached it.
Their loot disposed of and a permanent market established down across the line, Murieta led them back into California to begin operations on a more ambitious scale. He planned to steal two thousand horses and plunder the mining camps of enough gold-dust to equip at least two thousand riders who should sweep the State in such a raid as the world had not known since the Middle Ages.
Few trophies were ever recovered. The gold-dust was unrecognizable. Valois reluctantly gives up the search. He returns convinced that mere lust of blood directed Joaquin Murieta Carrillo. The bandits under him represented the native discontent. Their acts were a protest against the brutal Americans. They were goaded on by the loss of all property rights.
"Three-fingered Jack," the murderous ancient of the bandit king, is killed in the camp. Several fugitives are captured. Several more hung. Joaquin Murieta, exhausted in the flight of the morning, his horse tired and wounded, drops from the charger, at a snap shot of the intrepid ranger, Love. The robber has finished his last ride. Valois recovers rapidly.
They submitted their lives and fortunes to the possessor of this appealing idea. During the first year, while organization was being perfected, Joaquin Murieta traveled through northern California with Rosita gathering recruits, establishing alliances among disaffected Mexicans, and spying out new fields for plunder.
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