Boys, that fellow is Joaqu ın; d-n it, shoot him!" Joaqu ın dashed down to the creek below with headlong speed and crossed with intention, no doubt, to escape over the hills which ran parallel with the stream, but his way was blocked up by perpendicular rocks, and his only practicable path was a narrow digger-trail which led along the side of a huge mountain, directly over a ledge of rocks a hundred yards in length, which hung beetling over the rushing stream beneath in a direct line with the hill upon which the miners had pitched their tents, and not more than forty yards distant. It was a fearful gauntlet for any man to run. Not only was there danger of falling a hundred feet from the rocks, but he must run in a parallel line with his enemies, and in pistol range, for a hundred yards. In fair view of him stood the whole company with their revolvers drawn. He dashed along that fearful rail as if he had been mounted upon a spirit-steed, shouting as he passed:"I am Joaqu ın! Kill me if you can." (Ridge 85-87) T HIS PASSAGE FROM JOHN ROLLIN RIDGE'S THE LIFE AND ADVENtures of Joaqu ın Murieta, captured by Charles Christian Nahl's 1860s painting (Leal 4), is likely the most frequently referenced scene in the entire nineteenth-century dime novel. Turned into an outlaw, a symbol of Hispanic resistance, by his suffering under the oppression of Anglo-American conquest (Streeby 286), Murieta defies the subjugation, dehumanization, and silencing of Mexicans by