The Arizona sentinel., 1906-01-17
TALES OF THE DESERT.
Mining and Scientific Press.

By reason of deficient rainfall a large part of the West and Southwest is barren. This re- zion is called the Desert. The lack of water is being remedied, in places, by irrigation, so that many million acres have been won to cultivation. But with all the deserts potentialit'es as an agricultural region; it is the min eral deposits that always did, and always will. best encourage development.
 There is one portion of the desert which seems to have been reserved by some supreme power for the present generation to exploit. This is the most ar i'd part embracing the Mojave, Colorado and Red deserts and the Death Valley country. It seems that every single pros pector who made a discovery in this tract prior to the last de cade. and tried to work his find, paid for it with his life. There was Peg Leg Smith who set ont in 1884 to travel from Yuma to San Diego. He lost his way and found a gold deposib of eX traordinary richness; finally he reached Los Angeles more dead than alive, but with his pockets full of nuggets. Prospector like, he proceeded to go on grand spree as soon as he recovered from the effects of his trip.
 When the gold was all gone, he borrowed horse and slipped away in the night, returning in five days with six tobacco-sacks full of gold, and again went on a spree. He kept this up for some time, and several attempts were made to follow him; all but two men lost his trail in the desert, and those two never came back. Finally Smith agreed to take a friend with him on his next trip. He went on an unusually heavy debauch and died of alcoholism before he could even describe the the location.
 When the Southern Pacific grading camp had reached a point near Gloster on the Mo- jave desert squaw struggled in to camp one day with her mouth swollen from thirst and the fev- CT of death upon her. The grad ing foreman took care of her and nursed her back to life. When she recovered she produced buckskin bag with S5O0O in gold and gave it to the foreman. To all entreaties she refused to tell where she got it. She said her buck had died from thirst on the desert and that the Great Spirit did not want the white men to know where the gold came from. At last accounts she was living with her tribe at Yu- ma and still preserved the Great Spirits secret
 In 1891 the men who drive bo- rax wagons picked up a pros pector at Six Mile Station and brought him to Mojave. His name was Colder. He was an old man and he was crazy from thirst and nearing death. In his pockets were three gold nuggets which had a total value of S3654. He became partially sane before he died and tried to draw a map and show where he got the gold. He said he had been out of wat CT for three days and his bur ros could go no further, so he unpacked them and turned them loose; he then climbed to the top of high hill which was just north of where he left the bur ros. From the top of the hill he saw the trees about five miles away and started for them. Just as he left the top of the hill he stumbled over a gravel bed full of gold nuggets He was to far gone to stop to gather many, but he picked up the three big gest and put them in his pocket. He went to the water and drank too much and it made him crazy. After that he remembered uoth- ing until he was picked up by @1o foo