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

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 discovered it and accident lost it to us and to all others forever.
 AS the three of us started out on oer- tain morning I 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 l had recovered my wits a second arrow grazed my shoulder and as it struck the rock started up the gorge for shelter. Along the right hand side was 8 narrow shelf and as hugged the bank for shelter aScended this shelf and soon found my. self 30 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 a very foolish thiong. He came bounding along ill my tracks with tomahawk in his hand. and 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 h. dians had me penned up and knew it. At least two of them came up the gorge, and, climbing up behind the rocks on the left hand bank, they fired upon me with arrows until was driven into the cave for shelter. It was then that set fire to heap of leaves and dead branch es, which I 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 l | forgot the Indians outside for a long quarter of an hour. In that heap of gold were nuggets hardly bigger than a 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 a single nugget. Death had come
 to them, how I cannot say, with riches within arms length.
 | I took from the heap an almost solid mass of gold weighing 70 ounces, and after 8 brief look around on reaching the mouth of the cave I started down the ledge or shelf on 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. wal fired upon as ran, but not pursued. | think that three or four of the Indian: l had worked up the mountain above the | mouth of the cave, with intent to pre- | cipitate landslide and immure me, Lut
 they could not have had time to accom- plish anything when from other causes
 slide occurred. It began away up the
 mountain side and took ill d space abou 200 feet wide. Trees, bushes, powders and dirt went sliding down with a roar
 ing and a crashing, and mayhap the In
 dians were caught with it. At any ate
 when I reported at camp and returned
 with four of our party we heard nothing from redskins. 1 had run up a narrow gorge. There was no gorge now. Teni
 of thousands of tons of debris had come down to fill up the gorge to level, anG
 to get at the mouth of that cave ons
 would have had to get through 100 fee
 of the fill. Man had gathered the treas
 ure from nature and back to nature i,
 went for safe keeping. Some day mer
 may go there with machinery and find
 a 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 a good thing of it that none of tho
 party could ever feel quite consoled.