Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-06-21

proSpector'S psychology that cannot be I'M
proved upon. 1T is not in the finding but In
the hunting that the enchantment lies. If
were worth millions I'd still be here in this
camp tramping the hills-looking for gold al
ways"
A COUNTRY crowded with people chokes ex-
n pectation and hope. In desert spaces the
human imagination anticipates marvels Any
thing can be expected, anything might be
found in vast land uncluttered by humanity;
the wilder and wider the spaces the more vivid
the anticipation. No region in the world Is
more congenial for prospectors than the noun
tains and deserts of Arizona. And no people
in the world are more capable OF being en-
chanted by golden prospects than are doctors.
Vendors of gold bricks long ago discovered that
doctors are great deal more sangu1ne than
sanguinary My friend, DR.. r. w. Noble, OF
Temple, Tex, has all but persuaded me to go
to Arizona with him.
Suppose" he argues, that some miners
who had struck it lucky in the gold fields OF
California were crossing the mountains by stage
and were besieged by Indians. One of the
miners is supposed to have had $4,000 worth
Of dust and the others more than little. Sup
pose the siege to last two or three days, during
which time they were one by one killed until
not a survivor was left Would they leave the
gold out on the ground to be picked up by their
enemies, or would they hide it among the
LOCKS III uOpc biidI AT lCuSb OAS VI 1AACAA
number might escape to reclaim 1t?"
The supposition is based on facts mot
legend" On or about April rs. 1861, Jim Gid
dings, a Texan entered Stems Pass, near the
Arizona-New Mexico boundary line, in a stage
coach with six other men, including the driver.
Three or four of the men had made a stake in
the gold fields of California. The attack by
the Apaches lasted two or three days before
the last man went down.
Before long people in Tucson learned of the
fight and went out to bury the dead. They
found only five bodies. These were all near
kind of breastwork that the bsSieged had
made of rocks. Soon after this DR.. Mobiles
father, together with his young wife and about
60 other persons, while passing through Tucson
ON their way back from California, heard OF
the trouble at STEMS Pass. On May &c, a
month almost to the day after the killing,
Mobiles party camped at the pass. They de-
termined to find the two unburied bodies. Out
some distance from the road they found them,
or rather the skeletons, for wolves had polished
the bones. One of the skeletons was known to
be that of Jim Giddings
Noble helped carry them over to a spot where
q mountain trail crossed the stage road, not
far from the breastworks the beseged had
thrown up, and here in a shallow grave they
were buried. Then rocks were heaped over
the double grave and piece of surplus board
carried in one of the wagons was put up to
mark the head. Mrs. Noble wrote the
board with ink the names of Jim Giddings and
his companion. Her diary recording the event
is still preserved.
In 1918 DR.. Noble, son of the Noble who had
helped bury the skeletons at STEMS Pass, was
fishing in Medina Lake near San Antonio, with
a banker named Ernest Brown. During the
talk that came while the fish were not biting
Mr. Brown remarked that his mother was
about to leave for Arizona to see if she could
locate the grave of her father, Jim GiddingS,
who was killed by Apaches at STEMS Pass when
she was only two years old. She was not
certain that the grave had ever been marked:
she wanted to learn what she could from old
timers. Dr. Noble then related the story he
had heard so often told both by his father and
mother and had read Al the latters diary.
With the information thus procured from her
sons fellow fisherman Mrs Brown went to
STEMS Pass. She found the mound of rocks
marking the grave and found an old-timer
who had in 1865 read the name Jim Giddings
on the board placed at the head of it. She had
a 15-ton block of granite hauled out to mark
the spot permanently. On this granite she
had engraved the circumstances of the mas
sacre as well as the names of the men who died
by it. Near this historical monument the
crude breastworks thrown up by the Inflated
travellers in 1861 can still be seen.
THUS there can be no mistake in the place
where seven men, among them several
miners, one of whom had at least $4,000 IN
dust, persisted 10 years ago. Now, would men
with gold and with time in which to bury 1t
while expecting death leave it out on the open
ground or would they hide it among the rocks?
If they did hide it-bury it-then a man
hunting it has fairly restricted plot in which
to look.
Let him not act the fool and dig under the
granite monument. Treasurer hunters have
done worse than that, as Charles N. Gould of
Oklahoma Geological Survey living at Norman
will testify.
while hunting structure-not treasure-in
Eastern Oklahoma few years ago." he writes
me "I ran into a countryman who hailed