The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1876-12-28
The Black Hills Bonanza.
lBlack Hills Correspondence Chicago Tim,

lblack dlllS Correspondence Onlcago Ilmes.
The report has reached here that Nc
Call, the murderer of Wild Bill, has
turned States evidence, or offered to, in
his preliminary examination at Yankton,
and charges one John Varnes with hav-
ing hired him to kill Wild Bill. Varnes
has gone out on the stampede to the
Wolf Mountain diggings. He is known
here as gambler and "a man who will
shoot" but McCalls story is not gen.
orally credited. think there may have
been cause of this nature for the homi-
eide, for outside the dodge Mccall sue
cessfully resorted to when tried here by
the miners meeting-that Wild Bill had
killed his brother at Fort Scott -(since
shown to be fabrication), how can we
account for the commission of the crime,
Mccall not having any personal diff
Guilty with Wild Bill?
The excitement in regard to the new
diggings since my last seems to have been
intensifying. That gold mines have
been found there is now well demon
strated, considerable of the gold having
come into Deadwood to purchase sup
plies. 1t differs in color from any gold
found in the Black Hills, is generally
coarse and of great purity. The new
diggings are said to be quite extensive,
one gulch being several miles long, with
good pay throughout. Claims in Cali
fornia were one hundred feet in length in
the majority OF the camps; two hundred
feet in Montana and Idaho, and here in
the Hills the extent is fixed al three
hundred feet-an innovation on the old
rules which at one time threatened
serious consequences in Deadwood and
Whitewood gulches. 1 presume three
hundred feet will be the rule in Wolf
Mountains. ---
Just now there is considerable excite
ment over recent developments in Rapid
Creek, above the crossing of the Custer
City and Deadwood Road-Jack Bar
nett, one of the Oldest proprietors in the
mountains, having Just come into Dead
wood with well-filled purse of nuggets
which he obtained there. Hydraulic
machinery will be operating in that To-
cality early in the spring.
More new silver discoveries have been
made in the vicinity of Bear Butte, the
assays of the ore seeming to make it
quite certain that these argentiferous de-
posits will pay.
Much apprehension is being felt in the
Black Hills camps over the scarcity of
provisions, and -four famine is appre-
hended should not supplies soon reach
us. Flour is now S25 per 100, and is
constantly advancing. The stocks OF
staple groceries are also getting low,
the supply of sugar being almost entirely
exhausted. Whoever would immedi-
ately run IN here large invoices of pro-
visions would aggregate the realizations
of years under the ordinary margins of
mercantile profits. Some think -four
will advance fifty cents pound, and
some other staples to proportionate fig
ures, before the famine subsidies. Itwould
be well for spectators on the outside,
however, to understand that they run a
great risk in attempting to take advant-
age of this present condition of the local
markets, as supplies are brought in from
the north, east, and south, and the effect
of arrivals any hour may be to "tumble
prices" The ordinary prices of flour
here range from Sc to 81 hundred.
The causes of the scarcity are the heavy
demands of the military last fall, filling
the bills of Wolf Mountains stampeders,
and "sharp figuring" on the part of resi-
dent merchants, who, of course, have
discouraged impOrtations.