The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1886-10-28
GOLD SEEKERS REV WARDED
THREE MEN FIND THE LONG-LOST
GUNSIGHT MINES.
Travelling Through the Noted Death
Valley-A!most Perishcd of Heat
opS Tb;rst-GoI6 in AbundauCe

Travelling Through the Noted Death
Valley-AImost Perishcd Of Heat
and Thirst-Gold in Abundance.
A recent letter from Los Angeles, Cal,
to the New York Sun says: There are
now in this city three men who have re-
Gently crossed and recrossed the famous
Death Valley of Southern California, and
who have succeeded in solving mine
mystery which has bafHed the most dar-
ing and skilliul prospectors for many
years. The Gunslght placers were To-
Gated in 40, but were afterward lost,
and though repeated attempts have been
made to lind them, most of the men en-
gagged in the effort have perished.
About six weeks ago when A. F. Jud-
son, A. D. Spring and Barney Carter an
nounced that they were going after the
Gunsight trail, their friends sought to
dissuade them, and chance acquaintance
laughingly badc them good-by forever.
No one ever expected to see them again,
and when they set out confidently on
their mission they were given up as dead
men might have been. So many such
expeditions had left this and other towns
only to meet death in its most horrible
forms, that this one was regarded as
especially foolhardy.
About week ago the three men re-
turned They came in by rail, ragged,
emaciated, and feeble, and one Of them,
Carter, sick abed. But all were enthu-
siastic over their achievements, and each
had in his pockets Nuggets 10 prove his
assertion that the GunsIght mine had
been found. The story of their trip
would be incredible were they not here
as living witnesses to it's truth, their
bodies bearing all too plainly the proofs
of the suferings which they have under
gone.
Knowing that the discoveries of the
Gunsight mines crossed the Death Val
lev, these adventures sought, if posi-
BILE, to make the same trail Once through
the Moiave Desert, they soon came to
the dazzling white sandy plain, where no
life can exist. Almost at the first step
they were prostrated by the fierce heat
from above and below. Their feet
swelled so that they were compelled to
rip open their shoes, and the goggles
which they had prepared were but feeble
protection for their eyes.
The men had two wagons, each drawn
BY two horses, and in these vehicles they
carried water in barrels and other sup
plies. After an hour or two of the most
painful locomotion, the heat becoming
more intolerable at every step, the party
fa, o.
freshment. The poor beasts fairly groan-
ed in their agony, and the men them
selves did not dare look at each other
lest they would read in each others
eyes the despair which all knew was set
ting upon them. On every hand they
bcheld the whitened skeletons OF men,
of horses, and of burros. In some
places they found the remains of what
appeared to have been an expedition
ruined vehicles, with the skeletons of
horse, and men lying about. Vu!tures
swooped down upon them with angry
cries, and other birds of prey circled high
above their heads, following them as
they pro sressed.
When night eame they followed the
north star, ore man trying to sleep while
the others drove. At daybreak there
wa; nothing to relieve the eye. All
around them was the cleaning sand ;
overhead the brassy sky, and far away
the rocky sides of the mountains on
which no vegetable life was ever found.
Wearily they pressed on, confident that
the worst was over, but when almost in
sight of the east range of the Amargosas,
to which they were bound, the blazing
heat played them merciless prank.
The scorching which men and beasts
were enduring with reasonable fortitude
was too much for the water barrels and
their wagons. The wood of which they
were made shrank and shriveled until
they fell to pieces, first the wagons and
then the barrels. All attempts to keep
them together were useless. With the
water gone the party was well nigh in
despair, but when the wagons, too, fell
to pieces there was minute when all
recognized the probability that another
expedition was to be added to the long
list of those which had gone into that
abode of death never to be heard of
again. When things appeared to be at
their worst, Carter spied something in
the white sand a few rods awav, and,
hurrying toward it, found the pieces of
a wagon which had belonged to 49er
whose skeleton lay close at hand. Wood
never decays in that atmosphere, and of
the three wrecked wagons the men were
able to gear up one vehicle that would
o>nvey their remaining supplies and their
tools.
This delay came very near being fatal
to all concerned. One horse died in the
harness, and Carter was prostrated so
completely that for time his life was
despairel of. Toiling painfully along,
now without water and with no hope of
any until they could clear the desolate
valley, Judson and Spring were at length
compelled in their agony to dig deep
into the sand in the hope of finding
moisture with which to qucnch their
intolerable thirst. At depth of few
feet they came upon water, but it was
salt. They drank of it, but it only served
to increase their suffering, and when
~ oo,~,a &c +hn;r loreo, ~ n