The Florence tribune., 1900-01-13


 The Indians aud all of the party, stimulated by the reward offered and 1 their regulations as trajlers in question, worked hard and faithfully, following up every clew, however slight it might be, to find the poor unfortunate before life had left his body. The writer of this article had several long talks with Elias and several of the best trailers amongst the Pimas and Maricopas and with Walker and Ewing, but the story was the same from all of them. He had retained his reason for some days. They found where he had followed up a sandy gulch, apparently hunting water, and where he had come to a sandy level place and had lain down and written with his finger or stick in the sand, the number of days since he was wounded, and signed his name to 1t. It was very plain and legible. The trail was eventually lost in a very rough and rocky country, and it defed the efforts of their most experi- enced men to find it. Elias expressed himself and said it looked to him like some beast of prey had carried the body off to some mountain fastuess and there devoured it. At all events the trailing party gave up any further efforts and returned to Tucson with the sad news of their failure to even find trace of the unfortunate man.
 The sad news of Dr. Tappan's death was soon forgotten amid the stirring scenes of life on the frontier of Ari- zona in those days, and it was only spoken of by some old prospector as very curious incident, that not even a vestige of his body had ever been found.
 And now for the sequel. About twelve or fourteen years afterwards the Jessie Benton mine was located in the Tortilita mountains, near some rocky buttes, known to the Indians as the Owl Heads, from their supposed resemblance to that bird. There was a district laid off, and some of the mines were worked. John D. Walker, an old resident of the county, along with his associates, put up five stamp mill on the Jessie Benton claim and it was run for several years. Al. Robard, resident Of this county and an old prospeetor, in his ram bles around hunt ing mineral, found a human skull, evidently not of an Indian or Mexican. Several of the teeth were plugged with gold. He carried it into the camp at the Jessie Benton mine and the moment John D. Walker examined it, he pro- nonneed it undoubtedly the skull of Dr. Tappan. He made inquiries among army officers and had them write to Tappan's relatives in Ohio, and from what he learned he was strong in the belief that it was the Doctors skull. He gave it burial, and the incident was soon forgotton. Walker said, and he certainly knew, for he was with tue company of Indiaf trailers who had hunted for Tappan, that it was in this vicinity that the trail was lost.
 Some years afterwards, about four or five years ago, 8 man by the name of Myers, a well-known cattleman and resident of this county, who had been out in the Tortilita mountains, riding the range hunting ca title, saw a pair of field glasses hung up in tree in conspicuous place, and noticed them some little distance away. They were evidently hung up there to attract attention of any one passing by in that vicinity. The covering on the glasses was all shruuken and twisted out of shape by the action of the elements, as they had been hang ing there for many years, and no human being had passed within sight of them, or they certainly would have