Evening star., 1936-03-27
CHAPTER XIV.

Joaquin nad, IN SHiau way,
organized O secret service COM
Il posed of men who lacked the
courage or ability to plunder, brt who
were singularly adept at locating po-
tential plunder. In this generation
they would have been called finger
men," They were, for the most part,
poems, inoffensive In their communi-
ties, cunning as animals: they moved
about listening to conversations, mark
ing down the owners of rich claims,
ascertaining the date of bullion ship
mentS via the outgoing stages, locating
horse and mule herds that could be
driven on with impunity. OF necessity
these spies had to have good working
knowledge Of English and be able to
read and write Spanish. For pointing
their fingers at a prize they received
o certain percentage Of 1t when Joaquin
or his lieutenant appeared In answer
to their summons and consummated
the raid.
They had another function, q very
important one, and this was to keep
Joaquin apprised of the plans Of the
local authorities to ambush him, to
kill or capture him. In the men who
made up this company the people of
the State of California were not par
ticularly interested; the man they
wanted to capture and destroy was
Joaquin Murietta, cunning peerless
leader, daring and ruthless fighter. It
was known far and wide now that he
was the leader, the brains of an organ
lied banditry, and that his continued
success was attracting more and more
outlaws to him. While Joaquin lived,
it was believed there could be no safety
in California for any man or his prop
erty, but, deprived of his leadership
and cunning, his band must disinte-
CRATE and eventually be obliterated
because Of the casualties incident to
stupid, independent and inefficient
leadership.
The difficulty in capturing Joaquin
IN combat was obvious, but it was baf-
fling because so few Americans knew
him, and these had, for the most part,
never known his full name. In the
old days when he had dealt monte in
Sacramento and Sawmill Flat he was
simply Joaquin or the greaser, and
men found difficulty in associating
that gentle and harmless individual
with the bandit chief, Murietta. In
deed, few even remembered him. There
were no photographs of him extant;
men who might have identified him,
in the event of his capture, were now
few and scattered far and wide over
the State.
Through his secret agents, Joaquin
sometimes scattered reports of his
death; men Of his company (and there
were many such) who had been killed
In forays or In private quarrels, were,
at Joaquin's direction, identified as the
bandit chief, and, although eventually
these alleged identif1cations were dis
credited, nevertheless in the matter
Of Joaquin there were two schools OF
thought. One that he was dead and
that somebody had stolen his name
and personality, the other that he was
very much alive but seldom led his
men on raids; that he remained dis
creetly in the background, astutely
planning and directing his operations.
Gradually (and this was due wholly to
the excellent work of his sketchy in
telligence service) third school Of
thought developed, to-wit, that Joaquin
was an adept at disguise, moving un-
afaid among the people, learning all
possible to his advantage and then dis
appearing to rally his cutthroats for q
raid on the objective selected.
In the mining districts sundry
groups Of minute men were formed
when a whisper came that Joaquin
was within so miles. After neglecting
their personal affairs for three or four
days or a week and discovering that
Joaquin had moved still further away,
they would disperse and within week
horrible murders and wholesale rob-
berry occurred In their midst. Like q
man-eating tiger Joaquin struck and
disappeared into the wilderness.
OF course, he often had narrow es-
capes, miraculous escapes. He avoided
combat, If possible; if he had to face
it he went desperately to the assault.
and by the fury and recklessness OF his
attack, plus the bad shooting of an ex-
cited citizenry and the excellent marks
manship of his own men, he had never
failed to cut his way through the lines
drawn about him. When, In such
forays, he suffered casualties, he sell
dom bothered to pick them up; it was
his order that If he, Joaquin, fell
wounded in fight, no man was to risk
his life in foolhardy attempt to save
him.
To Bill Warren and Johnny one day
came Sheriff Marshall of Tuolumno
County. Boy" he stated, II am in
formed that you two are well acquaint- |