The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-08-19
ADAn'S
CAVE.
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Every district of the mining country
Of the west has its own story of lost
mine. Lonely prospectors have wan
dered away into the mountains and the
deserts of the southwest and have re
turned after DAYS of absence to eau
tiously display samples of fabulously
rich ore discovered somewhere in their
NSnderings. From one cause or an
other they have disappeared later and
with them has vanished every trace
of the rich deposits of the precious
metal that they discovered. Others have
taken the fever from the glimpse they
had of the shining specimens and have
gone in quest of the vanished treasure.
They were pOwerless in the grasp or
the prospectOr's eternal hope. They
followed to the hills or the deserts and
died on the sands Of the alkaline waste
or in giant crevices and deep canyons
of the mountains. Not until these give
UP their dead will it be known how
many have persisted in the search for
the lost mines of the west
In the Navajo In 1ian reservation,
buried somewhere among the low hills
of the half-eXDlOred country, there is
a mine that is known far and wide over
Arizona and Mem Mexico as Adams
Cave" Shortly after the Indians had
been crowded back into the district
they now occupy and the government
had sent out it's soldiers to keep them
there a man named Henry Adams came
out from the east and established lit
tie trading store near Fort Defiance.
He cared little or nothing for the trade
of the white men, and few, if any, out
side of the soldiers ever came to his
store. Adams traded with the Indians,
kept strictly within the bounds of the
law so far, at least, as appearances
were concerned, for ne was crafty
enough to know that the sale of whis-
key to the red man would not make
him a friend, nor keep his friendship
once it had been secured. The Indians
respected Adams and were as friendly
with the white man as the race could be
in those days, for it was a time Of al
most constant friction between the
warriors and soldiers. The former took
TO the warpath on the slightest pre-
text, and the latter. determined to keep
them within the reserve tion, were not
averse to varying the mOnOtonOus life
of garrison duty in the west with an
occasional slxirmish with the redskins.
But Adams minded his own business
and was neither friend nor foe to the
one or the other. One Sultry after
noon when the days trade had been
more dull than usual, Adams was sit
ting in the shade of his rude shack, "
when three Navajo warriors approach
I'd the store. With the customary gut
teral greeting of How which was
neither a question nor an answer. but
more of a grunt. they entered the
store Adams followed them in and the
three bucks proceeded to point out one
thing after another and gather the
articles designated in a bundle to be
carried away. Adams looked on and
said nothing The bucks helped them
selves and. as they turned to 60 in
payment they laid leather bag of gold
nuggets on the counter.
Adams watched them disappear from
sight; he was busy thinking. The In
dams. he knew, had not been off the
reservation. The gold therefore, came
from the hills of the Navajo country.
Adams determined TO find the mine.