The Pirate of the Placers; or, Joaquin's Death-Hunt

This 1882 Beadle & Adams dime novel, *The Pirate of the Placers*, serializes an adventure tale by Joseph E. Badger, Jr., featuring the legendary California outlaw Joaquin Murieta. The narrative begins in a mining camp where Irishman Tom Lynch recounts to fellow miners how wrongful lynchings—of two young Mexicans at Hangtown and ranchero Melchoir Isturitz—sparked Murieta's vendetta. Lynch reveals that five men who flogged Murieta and seven who hanged his brother Carlos have since been murdered, and he has evidence to present at a secret meeting in Marysville. A seemingly cordial Southerner befriends Lynch on the road but is revealed to be Murieta himself in disguise. Murieta, seeking vengeance against those he holds responsible for his family's suffering, attacks Lynch with a knife, leaving him mortally wounded.