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Then Joaquin Murieta rode back with the survivors to Arroyo Cantoova; and if Rosita, who had been sent with the other women to the rendezvous early in the summer, felt her heart leap when she saw her lover coming, she soon felt it sink again, for he spent but few moments in her company. Horses and gold and his large plan to sweep like fire through California–these were the only thoughts he had. Within a week he had divided the band into several parties, two of which under himself and Three-Fingered Jack went north to plunder the placer camps.

There is hardly an old town in the whole Bret Harte country that has not its stories of the raiding during the winter of 1852-53. With the knowledge which he and his lieutenants had gained at Mokelumne Hill the chief directed operations, but as the weeks went by the influence of Three-Fingered Jack grew until his methods were employed in every robbery. By December the list of wanton murders had grown so great that the State of California offered a reward of five thousand dollars for Joaquin Murieta, alive or dead.

The notices announcing this reward were posted in Stockton one Sunday. The town was then the point of departure for the southern placer district, a lively place with craft of all kinds coming from San Francisco to tie up at its levee and an endless procession of wagons traveling out cross the flat lands of the San Joaquin valley to the foot-hills. Everything was running wide open and the sidewalks were crowded with men, most of whom were ready to take a rather long chance for five thousand dollars.

One of the bills, tacked to the flag-pole in the public square, attracted more readers than the others, and many a group gathered about it to discuss what show a bold man might have of earning the reward. The sidewalk loungers watched these debaters come and go until the thing was beginning to be an old story; and they were almost ready to turn their jaded attention elsewhere when a well-dressed Mexican came riding down the street, turned his fine horse into the square, and reined up before the flag-pole. The audience watched him leap from the saddle and write something at the bottom of the bill.

When he had touched his horse with the spurs and ridden away at a slow Spanish trot, one of the onlookers, more curious–or perhaps he was less lazy–than his fellows, sauntered over to read what had been written; and when he read it waved his hand in so wild a gesture that every one who saw him came running to the flag-pole. At the bottom of the placard with its offer of five thousand dollars’ reward for Joaquin Murieta, alive or dead, they found this subscription set down in a good bold hand:

“And I will pay ten thousand dollars more. JOAQUIN MURIETA.”

Faith in the State’s promise rather than that of the robber sent many riders out of Stockton that day to scour the willow thickets by the river and the winding tulle sloughs. The posses were speeding back and forth all night long and the excitement attending their comings and goings lasted into Monday. So there were few on hand to watch the departure of a schooner for San Francisco that morning.

She left the levee with her crew of three and with two passengers, miners from San Andreas who were taking out about twenty thousand dollars in gold-dust. The crew let out the sails, the canvas bellied before the easy breeze, the schooner glided down the reed-lined slough whose smooth waters held her reflection like a mirror. Flocks of wild fowl rose before her as she came along.

A rowboat shot out of the tulles just ahead of her. The helmsman took one look at the five men in the little craft and dropped his tiller to pick up a double-barreled shotgun. He shouted to the sailors; they sprang for weapons, and the two miners in the cabin leaped up the companion stairs, their pistols in their hands. Before the foremost was half-way up the flight the shooting had begun; he gained the deck in time to see the body of the helmsman drooping over the swinging tiller, overhung by a thin white cloud of powder-smoke. The small boat lay alongside with a dead man huddled between the thwarts. The other four bandits were swarming over the rail, firing at the sailors on the forward deck as they came.