The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1912-04-04


"A has its stories of lost mines,
"a but there is no place where
Il "a there exists a better excuse
for them than the great Ameri-
can desert. 1t is the lure of lost
mines that has caused a great deal Of
the prospecting and exploration Of the
deserts in recent years, and in II
manner or other you will find that a
tradition of a lost mine is at the bot
tom of almost every important dis
:overy.
The fame Of Death Valley has been
largely due to the fact that a num-
Der of glowing stories of lost treasure
have centered about 1t since the ear
lier days of the first explorers who
crossed it's vast and mysterious
wastes.
There is the well authenticated
story of the Lost Breyfogle Nine"
which is known to many old-timers,
and the golden lure Of which has been
a constant incentive to ~prospectors
for half a century. Then there Is
The Lost Gun-sight," the story of
which has spread far and wide and
has become n Of the permanent
legends of the western mining world.
The Lost Alvord," somewhere in
the western verges Of Death Valley,
has about 1t a tang of romance like
that Of the Spanish treasures. And
there is still another treasure story
pertaining to the discovery of a noun
tain of solid black sulphurets of sill
YER, somewhere in the southern
Panamints, by a struggling party Of
immigrants, who made their way
through that region in 1850.
These stories all give to that region
a coloring and allurement that makes
It worth while to here relate them.
The ~sreyfosIe-
1t was somewhere back in the early
sixties when all the southwest was
still an arid and sparsely settled
country, that an early pioneer of the
desert mountains, namely James
Breyfogle, a prospector, made his way
into the Death Valley region, and with
the aid of a burro, was exploring and
prospecting the Funeral mountains,
on the eastern verge of the great,
f~orlorn, desolate and mysterious val.
ley Of death. But the burros then
were as burros now and inclined to
stray away, as only burros can, and
so n day when Mr.. Breyfogle, like
many prospectors before and since,
had gone in search of his burro, he
found himself lured on and on in the
vain effort TO locate the beast or dis
tinguish IL from other objects, he
penetrated a vast, far canyon In the
Funeral range, partly for urpos of
prospecting and exploration and part
ly to determine if the burro might
be found brousing in there somewhere
or seeking the company Of other
burros.
However he found no friendly or
familiar object Of the animate world,
only the vast and sun-blackened,
weather-beaten cliffs and crags and
the gray and solemn sage and sand
and the strewn debris Of the hollows.
Finally he espied a lone willow tree
In a ~ravine, and with the instinct of
one accustomed to the deserts he
knew that the willow was a good in
dication Of water. Upon investigation
he found that there was really a
spring beside the willow, and what
was more, that a big ledge Of heavy,
dark, rusty ore traversed the ravine
Just above. Breaking of some of the
rock he saw that it was permeated
with gold. The yellow. l~ustrous
CLEAN of the metal everywhere in the
half-corroded ledge quickly gave the
lone prospector the conviction that he
had discovered one of the greatest
gold deposits ever known. He broke
from the ledge a number Of speci-
mems and finally In the gathering
dusk he resumed his way over the
crags and ridges and after some hours
of devious travel was again at his
camp.
With a great resolve to get out to
the settlements and thence return
with companions and equipment, the
lone prospector with such thoughts
as would come to most men under
such circumstances made his way
across the rugged ~solitudes. In the
direction Of civilization.
Just what befell at certain points
In this journey seems never to have
been remembered by Breyfosls-