The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-09-17

| prospectors began to gather at Alamosa
and other places on the railroad from
which teams could be taken to the great
mountain. The first Of these were dress
ed like farmers and pretended to be such
in search of ranches in the San Luis val
ley. When they hired conveyances it
was ostensibly to drive to a ranch near
the town.
Then came the filing of the first claims
for locations at the county seat, and
then the secret was out. A grand rush
was made from Alamosa, Hopper and 9TH
er towns along the Denver & Rio Grande,
reinforced by miners who were no longer
'lcoking for ranches" Thus hundreds of
stakes were driven all over the vast west
ern and northern sides of the mountain.
FOUND THE LOST TRAIL.
One of the most energetic bands Of pros
pectors in pushing their way up gulch
hitherto uneXplored were surprised to
find a small section Of a we'll defined
trail, showing that some one had been
there before them. Pressing onward they
found still more sections of this trail,
and at several places they discovered that
1t was a beaten path seven feet IN width.
Most Of 1t had been covered up by de-
composed granite and powders washed
from higher points on the mountain by
enough was left to show that it was a
road over which hundreds of men and
animals must have passed.
Word of this was soon borne to Alamo
sa. Judge Holbrook and a few others
who had held firmly to the theory that
the Aztecs or their predecessors in power
in Mexico had had great gold mines on
Sierra Blanca were jubilant. They once
more exploited their views and investiga-
70
have fully confirmed their views. So far,
however, no one has been able to trace
the trail to even the, semblance of
mine.
Crescentio Valdez, who had spent all
of his life in and about Guadalupe the
oldest Mexican settlement in Colorado,
and had devoted most of his time to
prospecting about Sierre Blanca, an
nounced that on one Of his exploring trips
he had found an oblong slab, almost
hurled in sand, on the southern slope of
the mountain On this was a cross with
arrow pointed heads. 1t was upright at
| the time. He dug 1t out and carried it
| away, after digging deeply below it in a
vain search for buried treasure When
| next he sought for the place a storm
| had swept away all traces of Its former
| location. The slab was later mislaid in
| some way, but he could describe it with
| aCCQi dCS dIlu lie I1dQS
| rought sketch of it.
| OLD AZTEC SIGN POST.
| This sketch was shown to a student OF
| MeX1con history, and was unhesitatingly
pronounced an Aztec guide post. That II
| was intended to point the way to ar
| Aztec mine no one familiar with the cir
| cumstances doubts for a moment but
| Valdez cannot say in which direction II
| pointed and only an accident will not
| uncover the long lost mine.
| A man who gave his name as Black ap-
| peared at the Bank of Alamosa one day
| ten years ago, and throwing a small
| bucksh1n bag of gold dust and nuggets
I on the counter asked that It be ex-
| changed for money. He refused to tel
| the cashier, H. I. Ross, where the gold
| came from. The next month and the
| next the man reapppeared, and each
| time with a bag of gold Finally Mr.
| Ross resolved to have him followed by a
| couple of friends to whom he had con-
| fided the story of the gold mystery.
Black went toward Zapota canyon, the
| widest, most rugged portion of Sierra
| Blanca. Just as he was about to enter
| the canyon he discovered that he was be.
| ing followed. Cooking his rifle, he turned
| on the two men and ordered them to re-
| turn to Alamosa as fast as their horses
| would carry them, under pain of instant
death. The mem obeyed, and, as the i'm
preston got out that Black was a des