The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-08-17
RUNNING STREAN OF VIRGIN GOLD.
Greatest Lost Mine In the Worlds of Fact and
Fiction.

of my sombrero and filed it with the
precious stuff. The hat band was strong
enough, when torn off. to bind this
package. Then 1 filed my pockets
from the living yellow stream
Laden in this way, it took me sew
'eral hours to crawl back to the sum-
nit. Another hour or two saw the pro-
duct of the crater serpent safely each
ed on the western side of the noun
tains. Then I went back to camp and
tried to imagine myself nothing more
than a poor. lost prospector, but at
night I dreamed of golden visions
We'll. / stayed on the raneheria for
couple of days to disarm suspicion
and then. early one morning, set out for
GuaymaS- 1t was q long journey. heav-
lily laden as l was with treasure I
Travelled only at night to avoid the bril-
Sands and at lest I reached Guaymas
in safety. There 1 sold enough Of my
treasure to pay for q passage to Ma
zatlan- AT Mazatlan [ sold more Of
the dust to pay my expenses across
Mexico to Galveston, where I took the
first steamer that 1 could get to New
York.
AT the metropolis, where convert
ed the remainder Of the gold into a
bank account, 1 found that, deducting d
certain percentage for loss in handling
and packing the dust. 1 must have
lugged off about 100 pounds of it. Any
way, [ cleaned up 100000. and in those
days, that was a fortune. I thought
l was rich for all time, and I started
in TO have a good time and to see the
sights.
oh, no; that's not the end of the
story. Yes. it is true that we are now
going down into Sonora to relocate that
living stream of virgin metal, and this
will make my third sight of it. [ will
tell you very briefly about the second
time:
You see, it costs money to see things
and be a good fellow in New York City.
I took a run across to London, Paris,
Rome, Venice. Monte Carlo-but that
was expensive, too, and I didn't like
those places as well as 1 did New York,
nor New York as we'll as l did the
plains, the desert and the mountains.
Il was nearing the end of my pile
and painting for the old frontier life
again, when L ran across Pee Kitchen
in New York. He was the first man
[ took into my confidence You have
heard of Pete Kitchen, the old time
plains teamster2
We'll organize a, company, stock it
for a couple of hundred Thousand, get a
ship and go down there and bring back
a thousand millions of it, said Pete.
when I had convinced him that nv
story was true.
I'VE did organize a company, and
put 900 cash i'm to it-abOut all I had
left. On the 17th of July, 1876, the old
whaling bark Narraganset sailed out
of San Francisco harbOr with a crew of
Ii men all told, bound for the pearl
fisheries in the Gulf of California You
can find the entry on the books at the
custom house We cleared for GuaY1nas
where we were TO take on the pearl
divers.
"Of course, GuaymaS harbor never
saw the Maria anset, unless she had
been there previously. We kept out in
The gulf until opposite where 1 reckoned
the crater with its stream of living gold
to be; then at low tide we beached her.
Without much difficulty L Led the
way over the summit to the crater.
For three months, then, the crew of the
Narraganset worked manfully at the
difficult task of loading. We carried
the stuff out of the crater in small
leather sacks that held about % pounds
each We had thousands of these
sacks made expressly for the purpose,
and we filed every one of them before
we thought of leaving. And then, be-
fore we did leave. we filled every posi-
bic caSk or key or box on board. We
were loaded to the gunwales when we
finally turned her PROV southwark and
sailed carefully to the mouth of the
gulf. We were loaded too heavily. in
fact-that's always been my opinion,
though I'm a poor seaman at best-for
the gale that struck US off San Lucas
drove us on to the rocks. Not a man
but myself was saved, for the small
boats we're swamped by the maelstrom
that RACED as the Naragansett keeled
over and went down on her side. I
chung to a spar, and on the following
day was picked off. nearly unconscious.
by some native fishermen, and taken to
San Lucas
Now, if any man knows of a greater
lost mine than the one 1 know of.
am willing to place him at the head of
this expedition I am fitting out and
have him lead the wav,' said Mr.
Court and then he added: I'VE are go
ing overland this trip. No more sea
voyages for me-"