The Press., 1898-06-30
Indians. We divided the basin into dis


tricts and went carefully over each, but
met with no luck. After the first week
we separated, and each man searched as
his Judgment dictated. By the end of
the second week. however, we had made
certain there was no cave in any of the
cliffs or canyons in or about the basin.
There were evidences of several land
slides, and we had about come to the
conclusion that one of these had covered
the mouth of the cave when adventure
discovered it and accident lost it to us
and to all others forever.
AS the three of us started out on GER
tain morning crossed the basin to ex-
plore the country to the north. was
mile and half from camp, and at the
mouth of narrow gorge, up which
was peering, when an Indian arrow
whizzed past my face and struck great
rock and fell at my feet. Before had
recovered my wits second arrow grazed
my shoulder and as it struck the rock
started up the gorge for shelter. Along
the right hand side was narrow shelf
and as Rugged the bank for shelter
assembled this shelf and soon found my
self 80 feet above the bottom of the
gorge and at the entrance of a cave. AS
the yells of the Indians proved that they
were in pursuit, entered the cave SIM
ply with the idea of securing shelter. If
the Indians knew of it, one of their
number did very foolish Thong. He
came bounding along in my tracks with
tomahawk in his hand, and l fired and
rolled him into the gorge just as he had
got glimpse of the mouth of the cave.
That settled direct pursuit, but the In
dams had me penned up and knew it.
At least two of them came up the gorge,
and, elm bling up behind the rocks on
the left hand bank, they fired upon me
with arrows until was driven into the
cave for shelter. 1t was then that I set
fire to heap of leaves and dead branch
es, which | kicked together, and saw
the sights which had met the eyes of the
Mexican who had been hung. There was
a heap of bones and there was the ton of
gold.
In my amazement and exultation
forgot the Indians outside for a long
quarter of an hour. In that heap of gold
were nuggets hardly bigger than bean,
and there were others larger than my
fist. It had taken two or three men
months or years to gather that heap
from the creek, and they had not taken
away single nugget. Death had come
to them, how cannot say, with riches
within arms length.
l took from the heap an almost solid
mass of gold weighing 20 ounces, and
after a brief look around on reaching
the mouth of the cave l started down
the ledge or shelf on a run. The finding
of that great heap of wealth had made
me reckless, and my sole aim was to
reach camp and break the news. I was
fred upon as l ran, but not pursued.
think that three or four of the Indians
had worked up the mountain above the
mouth of the cave, with intent to pre-
cipitate a landslide and immune me, Lut
they could not have had time to accom-
plish anything when from other causes
slide occurred. 1t began away up the
mountain side and took in space about
200 feet wide. Trees, bushes, powders
and dirt went sliding down with q roar
ing and crashing, and mayhap the In
dams were caught with it. At any ate,
when l reported at camp and returned
with four of our party we heard nothing
from redskins. / had run up narrow
gorge. There was no gorge now. Tens
of thousands of tons of debris had come
down to fill up the gorge to level, and
to get at the mouth of that cave one
would have had to get through 100 feet
of the fill. Man had gathered the treas
ure from nature and back to nature it
went for safe keeping. Some day men
may go there with machinery and find
way to remove the obstruction, but
the ton of gold is safe from the miner
with his pick and shovel. We did not
make bad thing of our enterprise by
any means, but we just missed making
such good thing of it that none of the
party could ever feel quite consoled.