Arizona weekly citizen., 1893-09-09

| never able to return to the lead. The
samples he brought down with hin
proved the ore to be unusually rich anC
| that the lead was no myth. The 'Los
| Cabin" mine undoubtedly exIsts, snC
) prospectors from Colorado, California
Nevada and elewhere have travelled
north to the Big Horn range in search
of it year after year, but always With
out success. The story has been tolC
time and again at many an old timers
campfire bv gray-haired veterans, who
have spent half their lives IN search OF
the lead, until t has become to-day q
part of the unwritten history of TT
Mort west.
Bart Beckley and Jack Mcdonald
spent year hunting amorg the peaks
of the Big Horn Mountains in search OF
this wonderful lead, and even old
Comstock, v no was the richest man on
earth, but didn't know it, also made a
| trip north from Nevada especially to
find the Lost CABIN mine. Jack Nye,
Joe Sweeney and many others hunted
ligently for it, and still the lost mine
remains mystery.
joe Sweeney came from the southern
diggings and suddenly appeared in the
Big Horn country about the close Of
1877
He spent days, weeks and months
hunting for the lead. but it osffisd all
his efforts. He finally stumbled upon a
vein in the B x Horn Canyon, which he
firmly believed to be an Cutcropping OF
the famous lode. if not the mother
treasure itself. The news was tele-
graphed by the Associated Press, saying:
The Lost Cabin lead found at last"
But it was a mistake, as Sweeney's
discovery proved to be copper and not
| gold. and the Lost Cabin mine remains
as bad lost to day az it ever was.
In tie fall of 1877, little more than
year after the Custer massacre in the
valley of the Little Big Horn, cavalry
| officer OF the regular army was scouting
| after hostiles. who led him a wild-goose
chase among the peaks of the Big Horn
| Mountains For days he followed them.
but finally lost their trail and then
became lost himself. One day about
noon, after travelling Since daylight, he
called a halt, dsmounted his men and
| ordered rest for half an hour.
The soldiers threw themselves on the
ground, holding to their ST. eds, while
| the captain tossed his bride to an
| orderly and went off little to one side
and sat down on a mound of rotten earth.
The orderly lay on the ground to one
| side of his superioa officer, with the
| brides of the two horses slung across
enc arm, leaning his head on the other
| and looking into the sky. 1t was a grand
view on every side. They were up among
| the highest peaks, many or which were
covered with the everlasting snow.
Cloud Peak (the Hottest of the Big Horn
range), distinctly visible, though far
away IN the distance, lowered into the
SKY with green vegetation all the way
| up to the timber line, above which shot
the white snowy cap out of the thick,
| warm girdie of green.
A STARTLED CAPTAIN.
The orderly lay on his back and rolled
his eye from mountain TO mountain and
from crag to crag and then off into the
clear blue air above the clouds. After
while he brought them back to earth
again and looked at his captain; from
the latter he tran. ferred them to the
latter's temporary seattle mound of
decayed. rotten earth-and there his
optics remained until they began to
grow as big as saucers. At last he could
bear il no longer, Sc letting the horses
go, be jumped t. dis feet, rushed over
to the officer and shouted in his face:
captain, you ara sitting on gold mice"
Had the Captain been sitting on a
powder mine be could not have sprung
TO his feet more quickly. The orderly
acted like an insane man, for while the
officer was looking at him in astonish
ment, the former was down on his keens
aud breaking off great humps of the
m0Dnd 9th his hare hands
Reaching under d projection OF the
quartz-for it was, in truth. decomposed
quartz, the crazy fellow broke off lit le
yellow pendant, icile-shaped, that
proved TO be virgin gold. Both officer
and subaltern crushed the rotten rock
in their hands and were delighted t. see
tn ir palms and fingers sparkling in the
sunlight with dazzling yellow particles,
about the nature of which there could
be little question.
The rem ainder of the command had
lei. her seen nor heard the little drama
enacted so rear them by the Two lucky
meo, and the latter, by mutual under
standing, agreed TO keep their discovery
secret. A sack of tee rotten mound
| was carried away, ana and an assay of
The came made afterward yielded a re-
IL
a number Of days the command
wandered about among the gulches,
ravines and bad lands, and finally
struck trail which carried them out of
| the mountains. With horses played out
| and raJions nearly gone they at last
| reached camp tired and worn out with
| fatigue, after riding for nearly month
| over the toughest country on the North
u.
! killed shortly afterwsrd in a skiemish
| with hostile Indians, and at this late
| day every member of that scouting
/ party has been killed or oil charged, so
| that even their names are forgotten, but
| the officer still lives and Is at present
doing duty with his regiment at one of
our frontier posts. He has tried more
| than one to find the lost mine, but has
always been unsuccessful. To use his
own words: at is utterly impossible to
tell the precise locality or the near
| locality Of this lead now, as the country
YVES terribly rough and uneven, the
surroundings were strange and new, and
the Indians swarmed through it in
great numbers | hao my hands full at
the time, and every subsequent attempt
to find the rotten mound has been
baked in one way or another" 1t is
possible, and even probable, that the
goId-speckled mound of our military
friend Is an outcropping Of the LOST
Cabin niue. The latter is hidden away
! somewhere among the Big Horn pile
and every Indication points TO this
mound IS being part of the mystic
| ledge.
In the summer of 1864 a prospector
named Chris Reyes, who had been for
some time among the mountains OF
| Northern Montana searching for gold,
came into Fort Benton with a sack full
of rich nuggets, which he declared TO
have found in gulch among the Bear
Paw Mountains. The country at that
tine was alive with hostile red men.
| Nevertheless, two miners at Fort Benton
whom X Yes let into the secret were
aid to go back with him to the new e.
Dorado, snG SO the expedition was
: npdart n lxaD