The National tribune., 1894-12-20

| and made ourselves quite comfortable Ii
was on the second, or perhaps the third
morning of our stay, when /, who was chief
cook and c5mmissary of the expedition, de-
Cided to open the bag of beans and put some
| on TO cook over slow fire, so that they
would be ready for our supper, for Mt that
| altitude it requires all day to properly cook
Kettle of beans. Upon poaring some OF
| them into pan noticed they were mixed
with gravel and small stones, and remarked,
in language more forcible than polite that
the sutler had swindled us in the deal. AS
proof of the fact L showed the pan to Bill,
who was busy cleaning his gun. He took
the pan from my hands, ran his fingers
| through the beans, and in a mysterious
manner looked at me and then at the pan.
"What is the matter ?" said I. But never
a word said Bill. After gazing like one in
a dream for fully a minute, he deliberately
set the pan on the ground, and CALCULATED {:
Gold nuggets!" So strange was his man
ner, and never guessing tho truth of the
matter, / was alarmed lest he had suddenly
gone mad.
He went over to where the bag was stand
ing, and examined it critically, and said :
Do you know what is in that sack? A
gold mine!"
When we had regained our composure
somewhat, we panned out the beans, and
cleaned up somewhere between seven hum
dred and eight hundred dollars. Now the
question arose, where did this gold come
from?
Bill solved the problem by declaring that
someone, who did not know beans from mug
gets, had thrashed and winnOwed them out
by hand and in cleaning up, perhaps the
last bag, had scraped up beans, gravel and
nuggets altogether.
Now, if we can find out where these
beans were raised and thrashed out, we will
find the richest gold mine in Arizona"
My private opinion is," went on Bill,
that some tenderfoot, who don't know
enough to 90 in when it rains, dad this. Or
it may have been some half-breed or Mexi-
can, who has little ranch on some creek
bottom, but not likely, for as a general thing
they have more sense Our best way will
be to go back to the post, find out where
these beans were raised, and then locate the
claim, and we will he fixed.'n
Next morning we turned tail and started
back for the settlement. And / am here to
relate that we did not let the grass grow
under our feet either. 1t was "go-as-yOu-
please" race, with mllion-dollar gold mine
hung up for the winner.
We arrived at the post and inquired of
the sutler who sold him the beans. His
reply was that he received all his supplies
from Prescott, to which place they were
shipped from California; so he had not the
remotest idea rs to who raised that par;icu-
lar bag of beans After some reflection,
however, he remembered trading with
Mexican n month or so previously for
sack of beans That had a big red X upon it.
Here was the c.ew indeed but lie had no
idea as to who the Mexican was, never hav-
ing seen him before or since. All he knew
was that he bad one front tooth gone, and
led white pony with pack that after he
had traded for the beans, thereby reducing
his load, he mounted the PONY and rode
away in an easterly direction. Now the
question arose, Should we follow the Mexi-
can, who had more than month the start
of us, or try and trace up the man who had
raised the beans? For we still believed
they were grown somewhere in the vicinity.
We concluded to try the latter, and for
three weeks we secured the sparsely- settled
country for 80 miles around, but with no
results.
At length we had almost given up the
search when we ran across an old Meyican
who knew the man by our description, and
learned that his name was Jose Alvarado,
rowing miner and gambler, and who, our
informant told us with shake of his head,
WIS no bupno." He had seen him when
ne passed through the country with white
pony and pack, and be was on his way to |
Tombstone. So 10 Tombstone we started |
| long, dreary, tedious ride-where we ar
lived to find after dilgent search, that our
nan had left the town some three weeks |
before.