The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1918-04-11
SEEKING PEG LEG NINE
ON DESERT Of ARIZONA
PARTY LEAVES LOS ANGELES IN
HIGH HOPES OF SOLVING =.
THE MYSTERY.

sibly be In the coarse black gold ira
dition has crammed into its gullet, the
Peg Leg mine-lost eighty years ago.
and many times since the unfounded
Golden Fleece for scores Of modern
Jasons-today again becomes a mag
net for adventures, says the Los Ang-
ees Examiner.
A philosopher. an editor, q noted
chemist and-perhaps most necessary
of allan eastern capitalist set forth
last Tuesday for the barren land be-
yond the Salton sea, Swallowed by the
Superstition mountains, to relocate the
Peg Leg" and it's tabled treasure.
Respectively these adventures are
w. S. Abbott, Venice; A. r. Carey of
the Petroleum Reporter of Taft: Jean
val Jean de la Bisseaux, who says he
is cousin Of Nine. Cure, the Partisan
scientist, and that he was employed in
her laboratory when radium was dis
covered, and H. l.. Carey who handles
the purse strings Of the expedition,
and who has been wintering in Cali
fornia.
Use Divinins Rod.
To add the proper tinge Of the
mystic to the quest, Jean val Jean de
la Bisseaux has provided an up-to-
date "divining rod" termed an oscil-
lating mine finder. But it is not alone
to mechanical or scientific contrap-
lions that the adventurous four pin
their sanguineness of success. Months
of investigation by Abbot of previous
quests for the long lost NINE weary
journeys to half civilized camps, have
convinced him and his companions
that the mine still does exist and that
1t Is within the bounds of human en- =
deavor to find 1t.
The four treasure seekers left for
Yuma Tuesday, and from that point
they will travel by pack train
Supposedly in the Superstition range
somewhere between these desolate
peaks, the little town of Warner sta
ton, Salton Sea and Smith mountain,
the lost mine was located nearly a
century ago by Thomas L. (Peg Lego
Smith, a hardy prospector, who, de-
spite his crippled condition. tapped
and dug his way through much of
California in the early days.
Story Recalled.
One day, about 1912, the story goes,
he staggered to the Warner station
postofflce with heavy, dark mass of
metal. Copper, the folks all said,
when scratching revealed a red, met
allie CLINT.
Disheartened. Peg Leg" limped
away back to his claim. and there it
is supposed he died, for he never re-
turned to Warner station and the in
habitants soon found a new butt for
their pranks and jokes.
Thirty summers the chunk of metal
served to hold the postoffice door ajar
and thirty winters it lay in the cor
ner till one day geologist saw it.
Cold" he cried, and then began the
first stampede for the Peg Leg mine,
Later, so goes Abbot's narrative, an
Indian girl eloped from the tepee of
her father near Warner station with
young buck. upon whose suit the
father frowned. Although they had
full days start on the irate parent,
he overlook them and slew the auda
cious brave who had despoiled him of
his daughter.
Leaving the girl to bury her mate,
the father returned to his tepee, but
the girl showed up soon after at the
settlement of Flowing Well with a
soiled bandana chock full of the dull
metal.
Twenty teams were driven from Los
Angeles in the unsuccessful quest, but
all the stampeders returned save
those who fell by the way, without a
grain Of dust"
First Find Grave.
Abbot, however, did not start his
hunt with the mine as his objective.
IF can find this Indians grave" he
reasoned, II shall be a notch nearer
the mine, which must lie between that
grave and Warner station, the scene
of the elopment."
And find the grave he did. At least
that's what he says, and beside the
grave, half buried in 1t, was copper
and clay bowl. used, Abbot declares,
by Indians to locate their mines,
Tradition has 1t that the present
owner of the Peg Leg" is an Indian
the widow of the
bridegroom. 1t is said that
she makes occasional trips to civiliza-
ton for flour, bacon and other nee
essities. Efforts to trail her have fall
ed. but Abbot. the Careys and Jean
val Jean de la Bisseaux are leaving to
visit her domain and wrest from her
IONS of the sombre gold over which
she is keeping lonely vigil.