Jack began working in the neighborhood. The ambush was
their favorite method--three or four in a party and one of the number
ready with his reata. When this one had cast the noose of rawhide rope
over the neck of some passing traveler and dragged him from the
saddle into the brush the others killed the victim at their leisure.
The number of the murders grew so appalling that Sheriff R. B.
Buchanan devoted all his time to hunting down the criminals.
Finally he got word of the rendezvous in Sonorian Camp and took a
small posse to capture the leaders.

But the news of the sheriff's expedition had preceded him, and when
they had crept upon the tent houses in the dark, as silent as Indians,
the members of the posse found themselves encircled by unseen enemies
whose pistols streaked the gloom with thin bright orange flashes.
While the others were fighting their way out of the ambush Sheriff
Buchanan emptied his own weapon in a duel with one of the robbers, and
collapsed badly wounded in several places. Weeks later, during his
recovery, Joaquin Murieta sent the sheriff word that he was the man
who had shot him down.

Northward the band rode now from Marysville until they reached the
forest wilderness near Mount Shasta, where they spent the most of the
winter stealing horses. Before spring they went south again, traveling
for the most part by night, and drove their stolen stock into the
State of Sonora. 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.

In April--almost two years to a day after the monte-dealer had left
his job at Murphy's Diggings--six Mexicans came riding into the town
of Mokelumne Hill, which lies on a bench-land above the river. A
somewhat dandified sextet in scrapes of the finest broadcloth and with
a wealth of silver on the trappings of their dancing horses, they
passed up the main street into the outskirts where their countrymen
had a neighborhood to themselves.

Here they took quarters in those tent-roofed cottages which were so
common in the old mining camps, and now three of them appeared in
their proper garb, well-gowned young housewives and discreet to a
degree whi