Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1917-03-16

idthtI ledfluB lOI 1dlllOluld hd0
steadily de~teriorated. and Alice had nc
dowry. Young Fleetwood being de-
pendent on his father and that father
~forbidding Il match for his son with a
poor girl, tie prospect before b low
ers was not encouraging.
Horace Fleetwood knew the story of
Alice's fathers disappearance and
learned that certain property supposed
to contain gold had been inherited by
the Winston and Hunter families.
Alice still chung to the theory that the
father might return some day to the
child he had never seen, and 1t trou-
bled her. Horace, in order to settle her
suspense. conceived the idea of going
to California to kill two birds with n
stone. lie would look up she mining
property Of Winston Il Hunter and on
the way would try to find out ome
thing about their disappearance.
Naturally the heirs Of the partners
favored the idea. Fleetwood, without
informing his father of his real object,
gained Lis consent to the trip and was
furnished With means for his expenses.
Taking papers giving the location OF
the property he was to investigate, he
set out over the same route the part
ners had taken some seventeen or
eighteen years before. But by this
time the Union Pacific railroad was I'M
der construction and had been complet-
ed as far west as Laramie. The tray-
eler went by rail to that point and the
rest Of the way by coach.
He stopped in the region where b
two men had disappeared long enough
to make inquiries; but, nearly two dec
AIDES having passed since the disap-
~pearance, he did not get even as mucn
information as Jenkins had obtained.
He went on, hoping for better luck in
the matter of the mining property.
Should this prove to be worth some
thing he proposed to stop on his way
back and make a strenuous effort to
learn the fate IF the father of the girl
he loved.
On reaching san Francisco Fleet
wood learned where the property was
located ard proceeded to its inspection.
He found that it adjoined one OF the
most productive mines in California.
The vein this company worked led
into the winston & Hunter property.
which made the prospective value or
the latter very considerable. Fleet
wood called upon the president OF the
adjoining mine and learned that they
had been DESTROYS for years to buy
the Winston and Hunter property, but
had not been able to find to whom 1t
belonged. He offered TO take the own
ers of the property into his company,
giving them a block of stock in pay
ment. provided the heirs could convey
it, giving a clear title.
But it was evident that the heirs
could not give a clear title. Not only
had the deed disappeared with the
original owners, but it was not known
If they were dead. If they lived they
and not their heirs were the persons
to convey the property.
Fleetwood was much chagrined to
see a fortune in which the girl he loved
-hdd sd4Aht rrenf+r hi Sraess-- - fr4-e - -
kept from its rightful owner He
could do nothing but return home and
report what would be extremely tan
talizing. Leaving California, he cross
ed the mountains and proceeded over
the plains by coach so far as the rail
road had been finished. There he
changed from coach to car.
While making the change he learn
ed that the railroad under construction
had struck a q~uicksand.
Now, a quicksand is not a good foun-
dation for a railroad. A gang of men
was set to work to get the sand out
of the way, that a solid bottom might
be obtained. The space occupied by
the sand was quite deep. They had
gone down a few feet when they came
to a mans hat. A little farther down
they took out a mans body. The next
thing they came to was a wagon, and
before the wagon vas a pair of horses
harneSsed to it. Beneath the horses
were another man and a wagon and in
front of the wagon another pair of
horses.
Fleetwood at once accepted this as
the true solution of the mystery. The
two men, with their outfit, had been
engulfed in the quicksand, and, since
the top of a quicksand gives no more
clew than water as to what is be-
meath, the discovery of what had be-
come of the men was impossible. Had
the location Of the railroad not been
straight across the burial place the
mystery would never have been solved.
Fleetwood at one learned where
that which had been exhumed had
been taken and on going there found
what had sc long been missing. In a
pocket of the clothing on Winston vas
found a leather wallet, in which were
papers identifying him, together with
a deed for the property he had been
going west to develop when engulfed.
On arriving at home Fleetwood called
together the Winston and Hunter fam
lilies and made his rpnOrt He was