The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1894-02-17
WORK OF A MANMOLE.
Mysterious Doings In q Ghlch Near
San Francisco.

A Lone Digger Who Has Honeycombed
the Canyon with His Excavatio1s,
All Of Which Have Been Made
Daring tho Night.
Scarce fifteen miles from San Fran
cisco, half hidden in the foliage of sur
rounding trees, nesting behind the fir
crowned ridges and rocky canyons of
grim Tamalpais, are the few scattered
ranch houses which, with the ubiquit-
Gus saloon, constitute the little viii
lage of Larkspur, says the San Fran
cisco Examiner. The road runs along
the bottom of the canyon, almost hid
den by the overhanging redwood trees,
till it merges into mere cattle trail.
This wild canyon is known locally as
Baltimore gulch.
For five years at least, as vouched for
by actual observation, an aged human
mole, in the still watches of the night,
has silently burrowed and delved in
the rich brown earth until the sides of
the canyon are literally honeycombed
with his tunnels and caverns. His
work is carried on always by night,
either by the light Of the moon or by
the will-o'-the-wisp-like flicker of a
rusty lantern. These caves mount up
into the hundreds always near the
roots of tree, some fully fifteen feet
in circumference and ten feet deep.
The bigger holes are carefully fenced
around with long redwood poles,
around which dead ferns and grass are
twisted, and at the bottom is a cross.
Other and smaller holes or caves under
the roots of giant redwoods are un-
fenced, but filed in with loose earth
and heaps Of dead brush. These, too,
contain the mystic cross Always the
CT 5.
For five long years this man gopher
has been digging, toiling. Sometimes
working for several days continuous
ly. at other times only appearing at
long intervals, nobody has seen him at
work. and what he hopes to find
nobody knows, for no one has watched
him or listened to his midnight mutter-
ings.
A visit to the scene Of these mysteri-
Gus holes was made by IN Examiner
correspondent one day recently. 1t
was q hard trip through the dense
chaparral and closely growing trees.
Hundreds of the flled-in excavations
were visible, of all shapes and sizes
and in every position. Near one, on
freshly dug earth, footprints were
visible, by another an old sieve was
found nodded with age and exposure.
Poles, stripped of bark. and masses Of
dead brush were seen piled around the
remains of former excavations.
A resident of Sausalito, and keen
sportsman, has explored the gulch
thoroughly and has often pondered
over the meaning of the holes, of
whose existence he will testify to. No
body knows where the mysterious
deliver comes from or where he goes
when his nights toll is over. Few
have seen him come or go, and those
that have describe him as wrinkled.
bent and weather-beaten old man,
with long white hair and beard. It is
hard to find the exact location of these
places unless one stumbled on them
by accident, for though they cover a
vast amount of territory they are hid
den by the dense vegetation. Only
few days ago his light was seen wan
dering about the hill
The labor and expense consequent to
remove such tons of earth alone and
single-handed, as he has done, and the
care and precision with which the
poles are set around the freshly dug
holes. with the cross always in the
bottom, all done in the dampncss and
darkness of night, suggest that there
is some treasure worth hunting for.
About six years ago man driven
crazy with cancer on the brain wan
dered into the mountainous regions
around Tamalpais and his body was e.
nally found by campers, who had lost
their way, lying in the roots of large
redwood tree. He had come from Lodi,
and Coroner Eden maintains he was
poor, but more than one man tells a
story of his wanderings in there with
twenty-five thousand dollars which he
must have buried, or it may yet be ly-
ing in some rotting sack scattered in
careless profusion amid the rankly
growing herbage.
This may then be the secret OF the
human gopher's strange work, but the
question still remains unanswered:
Why the cross7
Giving the Mittsn.