k 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