The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-09-03
MYSTERY OF LOST MINES.
There's the Disappearing Pegleg and

There's the Disappearing Pegleg anu
 the Vanishing Phantom
 The most famous of lost gold fines IS the Pegleg. So much being known Of this vanished bonanza, it seems iNcrtd- ible, says the Strand, that it's position is still a mystery. Briefly here IS Its story:
 in the year 1853 wood 1 legged tramp named Smith, on his way from Yuma to Los Angeles, took a short cut across the desert. Not annaturally ne lost himself, and was forced to climb a toilsome hill in order to see IT ne could get his bearings.
 The hill was the highest of three which lay all together in little clunp. Arrived at last on it's bare. rounded summit, Smith succeeded in finding a landmark.
 He was just going to descenl when he noticed that the ground was streWh with numbers of small, rounded pep bles of curious dul bronzy color. Smith had a little collection of frontier curios, and he picked up pocKetfuH of the odd pebbles to add to it.
 Eventually he reaohel Los Angeles in safety and placed the pebbles m ms collection. Some three years later a friend who was a prospector happened to see these specimea'
 He picked up one; weighed 1t in nis hand, scratched 1t. His eyrs gleamed' "Where did you get these no de- manded, in tones that shook With ex- citement.
 Smith stared at him suspic'ously' "Why do you ask?" .,.
 "They're gold, nlaa--pufe gold; " roared the other.
 Smiths eyes opened wide. His jaw dropped. "Gold!" ne mutt9red, lhi'k- ly. An there was sons of it." Then he slipped faintins to the ground.
 When he came to ne WAS mad as a March hare. He raved of ro,d. After weeks of Illness he got Nttle better. and in semi-lucid intervals told various peorIo all he could enenher of ms marvelousfin.
 Scores went out and searched higf and low, but they found nothing Some died of thirst and hardship, some came home; but Smith was dead
 Years passed. The Pegleg mine was almost forgotten; when suddenly San Bernardino was thrown into state of the maddest excitement by tht arrival of a prospeotor with a bagtul of rusty looking, rounded nuggets He had never heard of the Pegleg, but he told of his discovery of the gold on the top of a rounded hill, the highest or Q ump of three.
 Two men got hold of him,plied hin with liquor, and before dawn nex' morning the three had disappeared from the town. Others attempted t trail them, but a sandstorm obliterated their footsteps. They never came back What became of them no one knows Probably. their skeletons bleach II 1 some alkaline valley in the lonely hills
 But the story of the Peg eg Is not vel finished Tn the '70s, when the south ern Pacific railway was rnshng it's \ way across the desert ;Wo surveyor; picked up an Indian tqlaw nearly dead with thirst. In her handkerchief were k1t .,ed half a dozen of tse familiar bronzed nuggets,
 1 They gave the woman water, but not a word would she say about the To. cality of her find, the valne of which she evidently knew fail Wtti, In the night she disappeared, went back, nc doubt, to her own people, and she has never been seen again, Two nuggets which she left with tho railway meii were afterward compared with some o1 Smiths original flni and iha. they came from the same soIrse could hard | ly be doubted.
 Since then scores of prospactors have tried to relocate the Pegleg, but If any have ever succeeded they have never come back to tell the tale. Yet that the mine is there in a space no larger than the county of Berkshire, and that 1t is, perhaps, the richest deposit of na' tive gold in the whole world, there car l be hardly any doubt There are no In. 1 dians there now and few wild beasts; but neither is there any water. Thai lis perhaps the true cause why the Peg | leg yet remains Q lost mine.
 The Phantom Mine takes it's namt from the fact that, while it was found | three times between 1880 and 1900, no' ! one of it's finders ever lived to return to it a second time. This wonderful gold ledge lies somewhere near Littlt 1 Rock Creek, amid tangle of ragged hills in the northwest corner of Colo l radC,
 One evening in October. 1881, an olt prospector named John Boyle wa crossing the head of a ravine amont these hills when he slipped and wen rolling down steep slope, bringinl l with him small avalanche of grave and earth. He landed, half stunned, ol a ledge many feet below.
 When he came to his senses he dis l covered that this same ledge wa scanned with veins of virgin gold. H was so dazed by the discovery that was almost dark before he at last be gan to chip specimens to carry ava with him. He had hard climb befor him. So he decided to go to his camI less than a mile distant, and return i the morning to stake out his claim.
 In the morning six inches of sno7 had fallen and the flakes were sti
 coming down. Hoyle knew that della
 meant death. He would be cut off i
 the mountains without food, He mad
 straight for Denver, and succeeded
 reaching that town in safety.
 Next morning as soon as the sno'
 melted he was off again. He foun
 his old camping ground without diff