CAMP FIRE TALES OF LOST MINES and Hidden Treasure $3,000,000 Villa Cache Inca Golden Sun God Bense Lost Silver Mine and others CAMP FIRE TALES OF LOST MINES and Hidden Treasure By Robt. G. Ferguson CONTENTS Introduction. Villa's Three Million Dollar Gold Cache. Nigger Bense' Lost Silver Mine. The Lost Planchas de Plata Ledge. Following "Mose." Golden Inca Sungod. Lost Ledge of the Lone Ace Desert Rat. Old Pass Doubtful. Ben Sublett's Lost Placers. Lost Dutch Oven Mine. Lost Arch Placers. Maximillian's Buried Fortune. (Copyright, 1937. by Robt. G. Ferguson, Box 1747, Tucson. Ariz. All rights reserved, including radio and motion picture rights, except by permission.) PRICE 50 CENTS Introduction By FRANCIS FLAGG In this engrossing collection of tales of lost mines and hidden treasure by Mr. Ferguson, himself a discoverer of a rich gold placer he was unable to relocate, the reader may ask himself how many of these legendary stories are based on fact and not imagination. But to one who has travelled on foot with a pack-burro through the far lonely reaches of the Southwestern desert with its sweep of grease- wood and cactii, its sudden mountain ranges with their eternal similarity as to topographical features, the difficulty of fixing land-marks correctly In the mind, is at once apparent. Yet despite this, many lost mines have been rediscovered, enough of them to prove that there is more fact than fiction back of the scores of lost mines and buried gold stories. Only recently an incident verifying this has come to light. In the Western Story Magazine dated February 6, 1937 (Mines and Mining De- partment), appears the personal account of one, F. W. Harrington, who tells how he and some others rediscovered a lost Indian placer digging in Butte County, California. The account of the lost Indian placer was fantastic. According to the current yarn, years ago a certain redskin took rich quantities of gold out of a placer he worked. But in the course of nature, he sickened and eventually died, after which a landslide covered up his tools, sluice box, and all signs of his location. This certainly seemed a story scarce worth the credence, but note the sequence. Harrington located the ground and actually unearthed the sluice box and encountered pay-dirt containing coarse gold estimated at $2.00 per pan— approximately $3,000 to the yard. Harrington and his partners now have the rich placer diggings and the gold in the old Indian's discovery will soon be theirs. No — the old tales of lost mines and buried treasure cannot be lightly dismissed. Besides being interesting stories of adventure in a vast mystery land, they serve to show that the Golden Southwest still holds fabulous fortunes in gold and silver for the adventurous to discover. Villa's c&hree cMillion Dollar Qold Qache^ Eighty bars of gold bullion! Ninety pounds to the bar! That means over three million dollars in any man's money. And all of those bars save two — unless they have been recovered recently — are cached in the wildest region of the Sierra Madre Mountains, below the border in Old Mexico. The two excepted bars lie in quicksands under the turgid waters of the Rio Grande. Jack Shelton (for reasons the reader can readily surmise, this name and that of Alizana used in the narrative are fictitious) told me of this huge treasure. "At least five hundred men," he said, "lost their lives to protect or to recover it." About thirty years ago, Shelton's father built a railroad in Mexico, his son, a mere youngster, being with him at the time. The father was acquainted with Pancho Villa before he became widely known; in fact he and his brother engaged in business transactions with that redoubtable- to-be-chieftain. Young Shelton learned to talk Mexican-Spanish like a native. Furthermore, he established friendly relations with Villa and with some of the men later to win prominence as Villa's lieutenants. When Villa finally rose in armed rebellion and took the field, writing history with machinegun bullets and peon machetes below the international boun- dary line, young Shelton, a college-produced metallurgist and engineer minus the degree, managed (because of his personal acquaintance with Villa) to get sent to Mexico to gather news material on the bloody fracas being waged there. Shelton could write legible king's English, but he was no finished correspondent. However, the colorful facts of the cam- paign were what the Chicago daily wanted from him; their re-write men could do the rest. And Shelton got them the news hot from the battle- fields. When other war correspondents were comfortably housed fifty miles from the scene of the conflict, Shelton was with Villa's troops in action, getting first-hand information. Thus he cemented friendships already made with the bandit chieftain's officers and was enabled to make the acquaintance of still others. Now for some time Pancho Villa met with unprecedented success. Deserters from the ranks of other parties joined his forces. During this period his army over-ran a good portion of northern and central Mexico and he accumulated a vast amount of gold and silver treasure/. This Immense wealth was generally in the form of bullion. His brother. Hipo- lito Villa, stationed at San Antonio, El Paso, or some other one of the cities on the American side of the border, looked after the business of exchanging this gold and silver for ammunition and other supplies needed by the Villa army. Here a word as to Pancho Villa is necessary. He had received his 1 577060 (3) inspiration and enthusiasm at the feet of the" ill-fated Madera, the idealist who placed the love of country and humanity above every other earthly consideration. At the close of a talk made by Madera whilst giving him his commission, the illiterate Villa exclaimed, "General, you have painted a beautiful picture in my heart today!" But the horrors and cruelties of warfare, the disappointments resulting from the drunkenness and undependability of his brother, the disloyalty and treachery of friends and the malignity of enemies, gradually effaced this beautiful picture from his heart. At the battle of (JJlaya, he was a wild, raging animal immune to any consideration for human life or of sympathy for the suffering, and for three days made desperate onslaughts, driving his men to frightful slaughter against the entrenched barricades of the enemy. At close of the third day, he was completely broken and hurriedly retreated, leaving on the field of battle, piled high in criss-cross windrows, thousands and thousands of men and horses — the back-bone and flower of his army. This battle was the turning point in the rebellion; Obregon lost an arm — and Villa, the war. But when the latter retreated from Cilaya, he had with him a large quantity of bullion in the shape of gold bars. So much Shelton told me; and, his words were confirmed by a prior source of information given me regarding this treasure. Some years before, while acting as superintendent of a cotton ranch, I had in my employ a Mexican of more than ordinary ability as a water engineer. He was close-mouthed as to his past, though it was not this which set him aside from the other employees since most of them were derelict drifters from many lands with no desire to talk of yesterday or the day before. It was his quiet dignity and air of competent strength which inspired my respect. We became friendly, and one night after he had had a few drinks of tequilla, he told me some things about his past life. He had (so he said) been one of Villa's most trusted generals, yet nonetheless he deserted his chief, the desertion coming about in this way. Shortly after the retreat from Cilaya, he got advance information of an immense quantity of gold bullion coming into camp and felt certain that Villa would place it in hiding for a time. He also felt positive that the bandit chief would select him to convoy the treasure to its hiding place. This he dreaded. Trusted lieutenants who buried Villa's gold had a fatal habit of departing this world shortly thereafter. There could (he said) be no such thing as refusing the job, if commanded to do it by Villa, so deeming discretion the better part of valor, he stole away from the Villa camp and made for the border. In our subsequent talks on this subject, we wondered who convoyed the gold to its hiding place and what ultimately, became of it. Shelton's story was the answer to this question- Though he knew Villa had immense treasure in gold bullion, he returned to the United States without knowledge as to what disposition had been made of it. Then, a few years later, whilst making an engineer's report on a mining property near Santa Rita, he was surprised to recognize in the person of a ragged ore mucker, a man he had long supposed dead. (4) This was no other than General Alizana. a one time close friend and trusted lieutenant of Pancho Villa. Shelton gripped him by the hand. "Lord, man, I thought you got wiped out in that battle with General Blanco I heard of. What the devil are you doing, mucking ore? Come! knock off for the day and let's have a drink." Over their glasses in a nearby cantina, General Alizana remarked sadly: "As you see, senor, a change! But who regards a peon? It is some- times well to be humble and unknown. I have been that — as the good saint willed — waiting for fortune's wheel to turn. And now — are you not here?" "What do you mean?" asked Shelton. "How can I help you?" "You can help me," said the other slowly, "and I can help you — maybe — to millions." Of course Shelton's curiosity was aroused, and of course he showered the other with questions which, Alizana. being a cautious man, did not answer all at once but only by degrees, as he felt more secure of the other's goodwill and co-operation. Put briefly, this is the story he told Shelton. After the battle of Cilaya (as already noted) Villa's star was setting and that of Obregon rising. The remnant of his army was in rags, without munitions, and on the point of starvation; it was urgently necessary for him to get supplies and equipment. It was then he turned the immense treasure of gold bullion over to General Alizana, with orders for him to transport it to the international boundary line near Texas and turn it over to Hipolito Villa who had gone ahead to arrange for getting it over the border into the United States, where it would purchase the sinews of war so badly needed by the rebel chieftain. General Alizana started north with five hundred men and the gold bullion. Only his nephew, a captain in his command, and three others, knew what the wagons car- ried. Unfortunately, en route to the border, he encountered a much stronger Federal force under the command of General Blanco. Defeat was inevitable, there was the gold to consider, so Alizana turned the com- mand over to his second in command with orders to wage a running fight with Blanco and hold him in check as much as possible; then he and his nephew fled to the mountains with the wagon-train of bullion. Far into the lonely fastnesses of the rugged wilderness they penetrated, turning and twisting to hide the trail. Finally, they hid the gold. Then they marked the spot. Not content with this, having no further need for the wagons, they hung wagon-wheels on mesquite trees for some distance, to better guide them to the gold should they ever return. Meantime, in their absence, Alizana's small command of five hundred men had been annihilated by General Blanco. Realizing that Villa was done for, that the game was up. he and his nephew disguised themselves and made for the great republic to the north. Recognition would have meant a firing squad, without benefit of manana. but they were lucky enough to reach the border with bleeding feet and half-starved. Once in the United States, they went to work as peons. (5) As Alizana had foreseen, Villa's cause was lost; the rebel chief made terms with his enemies and retired to a ranch, where he was ultimately shot down from ambush by Government Deputy Jesus Barrazas. Under the circumstances, the two exiles felt that the gold was theirs and plotted and planned how to go back and recover it. But death took the Nephew (he was drowned in the Pueblo, Colorado, flood of 1922) before this could be accomplished. Alizana was now alone and knew that he must have help from some source, if he were to succeed in his designe, hence his willingness to confide in and trust Shelton. "I raised five hundred dollars," said Shelton, "and we went to El Paso and hired three men, purchasing a supply of picks and shovels/ ropes and other needed equipment. The men had no idea where they were going, of course. Two of them were left to guard our supplies placed in a cave and to watch the movements of the border patrol." Before this, of course, Shelton and Alizana had made other arrange- ments and enlisted additional help. Two vaqueros from below Del Rio, along with the third man hired at El Paso, swelled their numbers to five as they crossed the border before daylight on a memorable morning. For three days they rode hard over a dry, rugged desert, keeping well to the east of the Bolson-de-Mapimi. They skirted the foothills of the towering Sierra Madres until they reached that one of them known as Burro Mountain. Here they encountered traces of that three days' battle which left the bones of over five hundred men to bleach under desert skies. Two days later they came to the spot where Alizana and his nephew had burned the last of their wagons on the return trip from hiding the gold; and shortly thereafter found some of the wagon-wheels hung on limbs of mesquite trees at strategic points along the old route. The hearts of the treasure-seekers leapt in them with exultation. It appeared as if they were going to find everything exactly as the General had enthusiastically decsribed it. Finally they reached a point where a canyon broke the contour of the Sierra Madres. The General had assured Shelton that this was the gulch up which the heavy wagons with their almost exhausted horses had been driven on that eventful day five years previous to this attempt to revisit the spot. A watering hole was found, with an abundance of grass for their animals. Where a large encino tree cast welcome shade they pitched camp. As the nondescript bunch of helpers ate lunch, Alizana and Shelton took advantage of the interval to go ahead and survey the land. It was necessary to plan how they were going to recover the bars of gold bullion and pack them out of the mountains without, at the same time, revealing to the other men the location of the cache and the amount of treasure in it. They left camp with sufficient supplies to enable them to spend the night in the mountains. Suddenly they heard hoofbeats other than those made by their own horses. Then rounding a bend came trotting a score or more of khaki-clad Mexican soldiers, their broad sombreros glistening in the sunlight. The leader of this troop called out sharply in Spanish, "Who goes there?" (6) "Citizens of the United States," Shelton cried instantly, in the same tongue; but even as he cried out, the commandant gave the order and his men fired. Almost as promptly, General Alizana raised his gun. The commandant reeled and fell from his horse. Then the adventurers had wheeled their own mounts and were riding for their lives, firing back as they fled. Jumping several arroyos, they came into the main gulch. Shelton felt a sharp sting in his left arm and it went numb. Then, just as he came to a turn in the canyon where a deep gulch led off to the left, the impact of a bullet pierced his left heel and his horse fell heavily, crushing the wounded leg against the grinding gravel in the bottom of the gulch. Well was it for him that his horse fell in the gulch. The whooping soldiers passed without stopping and went thundering down the canyon in pursuit of Alizana. He heard one of them shout, "We'll come back for the gringo later!" The horse was dead. The bullet that wounded Shelton's heel had found its heart. He crawled down the deep gulch, off to the left, and so continued for perhaps three miles before coming out of the canyon at a place where, by an almost superhuman effort, he managed to climb over a cactus-covered mesa into another small canyon or gulch. For what he reckoned thirty-six hours, he lay hidden ere venturing into open country. How he ever made the Rio Grande is one of those eternal mysteries. It took him a week of nightmare torture. The two men were still at the cave on the Texas side of the river. From the cave he managed to reach Deming, New Mexico, where he got medical treatment. Thus, the first attempt to recover Villa's gold bullion ended disastrously. But despite this initial failure, Shelton was more eager than ever to return to the Sierra Madres and make another effort at unearthing the treasure. He looked around for a partner to interest in the enterprise, but before he approached any one. to his huge surprise General Alizana reappeared on the scene. Shelton had given him up for dead. But though he had been captured by his pursuers and tortured with refined cruelty, the erstwhile Villa lieutenant had managed to escape while the soldiers were conducting him to their chief — and to certain death. His spirit was still unbroken and he readily agreed to guide another expedition which Shelton again financed. As before, men were secured at El Paso — this time two. A short distance above Del Rio, they established camp. This time Shelton decided he would stay at the rendezvous and study the habits of the border patrol both sides of the river, whilst the General and the two helpers went to the Sierra Madres to bring back two to four of the gold bars. This time the trip and the job of uncovering the hidden gold was accomplished with little or no trouble. Leaving his two helpers at the Encino tree where the party had pitched camp before, Alizana went alone to the granite gash where the gold lay and, with native ingenuity and strenuous efforts, succeeded in hoisting out two bars of bullion, which he then wrapped in burlap and brought back on mules. In due time, (7) the expedition arrived on the Mexican side of the border river and the bullion was secreted in a shed. Shelton crossed the river to inspect the bars. He saw the neatly stitched leather covering outside a plain canvas bag which encased each precious bar. He saw the stamp of identification imbedded on the ends of the bars. Again wrapping the bullion in its coverings of burlap, they awaited the hour of midnight. At that hour, Shelton gave the signal from the north bank of the Rio Grande and Alizana and the two helpers — the General leading, followed by a helper on a pony leading by a rope one of the pack mules carrying both bars of gold in saddle pockets, followed by the other helper — attempted to cross the boundary line. With as much silence as possible, they entered the waters of the river, the last barrier between the two treasure hunters and fortune. But alas and alas! though Shelton had studied the habits of the border patrol both sides of the river, and proved more or less correct as to the whereabouts of the American guard, he woefully miscalculated the time at which the patrol on the Mexican side would appear on the scene. As the treasure traine with its escorts — those two gold bars were valued at $35,000 each, remember! — approached the middle of the river, the splash- ing of the waters by the hoofs of a rear animal attracted the attention of an inopportune Mexican guardsmen. This worthy immediately opened fire. The General — perhaps one of the best shots ever to come out of old Mexico and not slow to exercise his talent — returned the fire with deadly effect. Whether the Mexican guard's first shot struck the mule carrying the gold will never be known, but when the smoke of battle cleared away, both the helpers and their mounts had vamozed, whilst the mule bearing the precious cargo was lost in the quicksands beneath the swirling waters below the ford. This time the General was wounded in the arm, but he and Shelton managed to escape without detection. So the second attempt to salvage Pancho Villa's gold bullion ended as had the first — in disaster. Two years later, General Alizana felt the urge to return to his native haunts. Despite a disguise, he was recognized and taken to a place called Villa Ahumado, where he was 'dobie-walled. It is said the General met his fate with stoical resignation. Thus ended the only man who knew the abiding place of Pancho Villa's hidden gold — the only man with the exception of Shelton. Now a word as to the topography of the country in which the Villa treasure lies hidden. Just east of the waste of blistering sands known as the Llanos de Giantes lies the terrible Bolson de Mapimi — the yellow floor of a van- quished dead sea where, for scores of kilometers, no water exists and the only sound of life is the flapping of vulture wings — vultures circling overhead as if calculating how long it will be before they can gather around a festal board. Then to the east of this drear expanse rises the foothills of the Sierra (8) Madre Mountains, and in a cleft in a rock of one of these foothills known as Burro Mountain — covered with cone jo weed — lies the gold bullion hid by the General This is a wild, weird country, and the desert is strewn at frequent intervals with the skeletons of stout-hearted adventurers whose bones apparently never decay, but always seem to admonish the wayfarer. Be- ware, beware! Migger ^Bense' Lost Silver oWline^ About the year 1878, his term of enlistment having expired, a colored soldier by the name of Benson was mustered out of the service at old Fort Huachuca. Nigger Bense, as he was familiarly known, was a typical old-time Southern darkie who had served Uncle Sam in the army for a good many years. Whilst doing so, a great deal of his time had been spent as a member of the Border Patrol, scouting long the line between Arizona and Mexico, to the west of Nogales, with his headquarters at old Fort Huachuca. This was about the beginning of the hectic days that have gone down in the history of the great Southwest as the "Heldorado Days" of old Tombstone. From a very small village, Tombstone grew to be the center of a seething mass of humanity, a city of world-wide reputation and numbering, over a considerable boom period when some of the richest silver mines in the country were being worked full-blast, a population of at least fifteen thousand as tough hombres as every handled drill or toted side-arms. As soon as he was discharged from the army service, Nigger Bense went to the reckless roaring gambling town of Tombstone. He was a wonderfully agile and graceful dancer. He would go from saloon to gambling hall and from one resort to another, performing his own special rendition of jigg dancing, a solo performance something akin to the tap dancing of a later period. As he danced, the money-mad miners and prospectors would toss quarters, dollars, and even gold eagles, at his feet, and Nigger Bense would stoop and gather in the coins without losing a step in his rhythmical cavorting. He had considerable of the gambling blood in his veins and, in order to give the game more interest, made it a rule that whenever through some inadvertency or awkardness he did miss a step whilst reaching for the money, all of the money at that time lying on the floor would be tossed back to their donors, along with double the amount of their individual antes. As Nigger Bense always managed to miss a step occasionally, the spirit of adventure was whetted and crowds followed him from place to place, throwing their money at his feet with the hope of being lucky enough to cash in on a winning mis-step. At the time Nigger Bense checked out of the army at Fort Hauchuca another colored soldier known as Nigger Bob also received his honorable discharge. For a good many years he had served with Nigger Bense on (•) the border patrol and they were good friends. After going to Tombstone, Nigger Bense confided to Nigger Bob the fact that while serving as a border patrolman he had, through the friendship of an old Yaqui Indian, learned the location of a fabulously rich silver deposit, what he called a mine that was a mine, one that would develop enough silver, as he expressed it, to pay the national debt. However, he would tell no one where this rich silver deposit was located. He did tell Nigger Bob that he would make out some sort of will or document, giving explicit direc- tions how to find the mine, in case of his death, and leave it where Nigger Bob could get possession. However, Nigger Bob died with his boots on before ever receiving such a paper. So far as is known this was the only gesture Nigger Bense ever made towards passing out in- formation regarding location of his bonanza. Immediately after telling friends about his knowledge of the fab- ulously rich silver mine, Nigger Bense outfitted himself with a three- burro pack traine and started alone for his old stamping grounds along the border, below Fort Huachuca. No one paid much attention to his absence as it was thought that Nigger Bense knew more about dancing and drinking booze than he did about prospecting. But in about ten days, to every one's huge astonishment, he returned to Tombstone with three hundred pounds or the richest silver glance ever shown in that hell-roaring metropolis. Old timers who saw the stuff agreed that it was the richest, or the nearest to pure silver they had ever seen taken out of the ground in this part of the world. (At least they assumed that Nigger Bense had taken it out of the ground; but what particular piece of ground and where located no one knew or could guess). i Assays made by the purchasing banker showed the metal to be almost virgin silver. This first three hundred pound load brought Nigger Bense $500. But the banker, a fellow by the name of Woods, made a great deal more out of the transaction than did Nigger Bense. Once every two months, over a period of three years, Nigger Bense drove his pack traine of three burros into the hills and returned from every such trip wtih approximately the same quantity of silver glance, for which he received the same amount of cash from banker Woods. Naturally Nigger Bense became a most popular fellow around Tomb- stone. Hotel-keepers, bar-tenders, show-girls, in fact everybody in town, showered him with favors of various kinds. He was scarcely allowed to spend any of his easily earned cash, which seemed a small fortune to him, after his first trip to the mysterious silver ledge down near the border. Money soon became to Nigger Bense nothing more than a pile of coin to stack up at one corner of a gambling table; something to take the place of the red and blue chips in the great game of life. He con- tinued to dance for the edification of the tenderfeet and for the amuse- ment of the gamblers, miners and prospectors who frequented the public houses of this wild raw city of the wilderness. And, on occasion, Nigger Bense was known to indulge in the flowing bowl. "Hah! now we have him! He will give himself away when liquor (10) loosens his tongue." Thus thought some of the wild adventurers willing to eliminate the color-line if only they could get old Nigger Bense drunk enough to tell them where his silver mine was located. But it so hap- pened that when Nigger Bense got drunk, he also got "tight." The drunker he got, the tighter he got. Of course frequent attempts were made to follow him on his trips and he was trailed beyond Fairbanks around to the north of Fort Hua- chuca and then, in a southwesterly direction, toward the old Tumacacori Mission, the very region in which so many fabulously rich strikes of silver ores have found their burial places during the centuries since the Spaniards first came into this country, but here, he invariably eluded his pursuers. The sheriff who, with his deputies, maintained order in and around Tombstone during the Heldorado Days was a man named Slaughter. His principal deputy is given credit for once having arrested Nigger Bense on some trivial charge. Perhaps he put a few shots into the town's light- ing system or indulged in some other such playful prank. With Nigger Bense safely esconsed in jail, this arm of the law conceived the bright idea of making him reveal the location of his silver mine. Seemingly he had little difficulty in extracting a promise from him to give truthful directions in exchange for freedom. But once free. Nigger Bense devel- oped a sudden loss of memory and insisted he could not recollect making any such promises. About this time it was known that Banker Woods had a confidential chat with Nigger Bense and it was thought that he strongly advised him against taking in partners or revealing the location of his mine to any one. The banker was known to have made considerably more out of the shipments or ore brought in by Nigger Bense than he could pos- sibly hope to make from the same ore mined and sent to market by a well organized group of business men. Therefor he was interested in keeping Nigger Bense a near-broke good spender with a source of plenty available that only required a periodical trip of ten to fourteen days to contact. But finally came the day when Nigger Bense did the last tap dancing he was ever fated to do in the dance-halls and bars that straggled along the main stem of Tombstone. "Ah'm goin'," he said, and outfitted him- self for a journey to the mysterious location of his rich silver ledge. Envious eyes followed him as he gaily prodded his burros out of town; many watched and waited for his return, among them Banker Woods; but the days passed, and the weeks and months, and he did not return: Nigger Bense was never again seen in the haunts of men. What happened to him? No one knows for certain. But enough evidence exists to make people believe that Nigger Bense was returning to Tombstone with his three burros heavily loaded with rich silver glance when disaster befell him. Tracks showed that the burros had turned west instead of coming the regular route eastward to Tombstone. Undoubtedly the men who sought to trail him to his lost silver mine (11) failed to do so but way-laid and murdered him on his return trip and stole his ore. So the old timers believed, and such was the opinion of Mart Taylor, pioneer ranchman of the Tombstone country, who told me the story. "Out there," he said, pointing southward to where rugged mountains and lonely canyons make terra incognita along the Mexican border; "out there, somewhere, lies Nigger Bense' fabulously rich silver glance ledge for some lucky prospector to find." But to date, no prospector has. ^he Lost Tlanchas de 'Tlata Ledger The Southwest is glamorous with its tales of lost gold and silver mines. Long before the coming of the Jesuit fathers, and of Spanish adventurers into Northern Mexico and Southern Arizona (the Pimeria Alta of the Spaniards), the natives worked many mines. Yaqui Indians knew of rich mineral deposits and the Spanish invaders learned of their location from them. The missions established by Father Kino at Guevavi and Tumacacori (according to Hinton) engaged extensively in mining, using Indian labor. But the strictness of mission life, coupled with the excesses of the Spanish adventurers whom the padres sought vainly to control, led to many Indian uprisings. Those uprisings forced the missions to abandon mining and drove the white invaders out of Pimeria Alta for many years, during which time the Indians filled up many valuable work- ings and destroyed landmarks so that the locations of them were irre- trievably lost. Among the mines so lost was the fabulously rich silver mine called by the Spaniards the PLa-nchas de Plata (Plates of Silver). Probably long before the Spaniards' time, Aztecs worked the Plan- chas de Plata for silver to gild their temples and to fashion into utensils and barbaric adornments. Ore of incalculable richness had doubtless been taken from the mine by them, and yet, seemingly, an inexhaustible store remained for the adventurers and to flow into the coffers of the Spanish crown. It beggars the imagination to try and compute how much free silver this mine held (and still holds.) During the short period it was in possession of the Spaniards, sheets of pure native silver were stripped from the walls of the mine. The sheets were described as being flexible when first mined but soon hard- ened on exposure to the elements. Two of these sheets call for special mention. I almost hesitate to set down what the Spanish accounts state was their official weight. One weighed 149 arrobas, and the other 21 arrobas. When I tell you that an arroba is equal to 25 pounds, you will grasp the magnitude of the statement. The sheet said to weigh 149 arrobas (3725 lbs.) had to be reduced in a furnace before the crude transportation facilities of that day could handle it. The approximate amount of silver (12) glance extracted by the Spaniards in the short time they worked the mine before the Indians drove them out, is put at 400 arrobas; or in other words, came to the stupendous weight of about ten thousand pounds or five tons. I am told that in "An Essay on the Mineral Resources of Northern Sonora", by Don Manuel Retez, written shortly after the Spaniards worked the mine, that mention is made of the lost Planchas de Plata. Bancroft alludes to it in his history of Mexico and Arizona and I have already said that Hinton does. And of course there are the old documents in the historical archives of Mexico City. When Count Rousseth de Bourbon made his celebrated trip of exploration into Sonora, it was to search for the Planchas de Plata, and for yet another silver mine said to lie several leagues to the south of it. According to Spanish sources, the location of the lost Planchas de Plata mine was within a league east of the junction, 31% degrees north, 111% degrees west, of Greenwich. A story said to be based on the statement of an old Yaqui Indian considered truthful, is to the effect that the Planchas de Plata was about four leagues southwest of old Tumacacori mission. However that may be, no white man's eye, since the Spaniards fled before the attacks of Indians in those early days, has seen the lost Planchas de Plata. No white man's eye. But did a black man's? Was the lost Planchas de Plata the source of that fabulously rich silver glance Nigger Bense brought periodically into Tombstone on the backs of his plodding burros and sold to Banker Woods? It is impossible to say. Only the similarity of the ore to that mined by the Spaniards, its unbelievable richness, coupled with the fact that it was found in the same vicinity as the lost Planchas de Plata, would incline one to think so. Nigger Bense is dead, his secret buried with him; dust for centuries now have been the bones of those Indians who filled up the mine and obliterated all trace of its existence. But some day — almost inevitably — some lone prospector, some group of mining men or explorers making their way through those lonely hills and canyons near the international boundary line, will find the fabulous lost Planchas de Plata, as perhaps did Nigger Bense. I wonder who those lucky men will be. following "oMosd;" I had spent part of the winter camped on the old La Paz Placers, to the northwest of Quartzsite, Arizona. In the glamorous gold-rush days back in '49, many overland pioneers travelling via Tyson Wells passed directly over, or within a few miles of the rich gold placer sands of this region, without suspecting that they were passing up fabulous fortunes in yellow metal. (13) The La Paz placers were discovered by that mysterious fur-hunting mountain man, Paulino Weaver, a decade or so before the turn of the nineteenth century (about 1862), and soon thereafter this region became a beehive of placer miners and camp-followers. It is estimated that, at the peak of its boom, ten thousand miners were sifting its rich dirt, and taking out plenty of gold — some as high as $100 per day. At a later period, the same ground was gone over again and again with dry wash- ers of various kinds and sufficient gold recovered to exchange for frijoles and other necessary living requirements of those who lived the free and easy life of the gambuzino. Perhaps with more perfect methods and the application of, as yet, undiscovered chemical and electrical processes, larger fortunes than were taken out in the olden days may be recovered from those desert sands. However, it is not my intention to write a treatise on early day mining or the merits of modern methods of gold extraction. I am only endeavoring to relate the story of an enormously rich placer that I discovered and lost in this region and to set the stage, as it were, for those readers not acquainted with the locality, and to make it clear that, past, present or future, this is gold country where desert rats have discovered and lost fortunes, and that in following "Mose" I was taking a legitimate chance on striking it rich. During my sojourn on the La Paz placers I had made the acquaintance of a typical old-time prospector. Sun, sand, and snow had weathered his tough body to the consistency of gnarled oak. Fifty years had he prospected the gold fields of North America; fifteen of those years in Alaska, hunting the precious metal from White Horse Canyon to the Arctic Circle. Of late years, however, his prospecting had been confined to the land of the wheezy whine of the dry washers. In confidental chats around the winter campfire, he told me of a wonderfully rich gold-vein he claimed to have seen some two hundred fifty miles to the north of La Paz. After endless discussions as to the possibility of developing his discovery, I decided to take a chance and join the old fellow on a trip to the lode. Spring was beginning to advance on the desert. From day to day the sun shone warmer and numerous wild bees began to suck honey from the catclaw blooms. At such times I always start suffering from what the highbrows call wanderlust, but for which there is a homelier name — itchy feet. "All right," I said to the old prospector, "it's a bargain. Fifty-fifty on what we strike. Let's get going." We struck hands to seal the bargain and set the day. I Aside from his meagre camp equipment, "Mose" was the chief pos- session and pride of the old prospector, and a unique burro he was. His hide was mouse-colored, his ears as long as those of a jack-rabbit, and he generally stood with his eyes closed and a deceptive air of humble- ness; but woe-betide the unwary dog or stranger that too closely ap- proached his hind quarters. I have heard of men who would share their last crust with a favorite dog; but I am sure the old prospector would (14) have given this ornery mountain »anary Q f his all of the crust and gone without himself. It was a clear sunny morning when we started, Mose loaded down with cooking utensils, bedding, tnpping outfit, and a complete hand- operated dry washer — all arranged it various vantage points on his stolid anatomy. Two roads led out of camp, b>th meandering along in a northerly direction. "Well," I queried, "whiih do we take?" To my astonishment the old ppspector replied that he didn't know. Since he had repeatedly assured me in our talks that he could go directly to the rich lode, I naturp*y Vegan to experience some feelings of misgiving which I probably nude verbal. He then explained that once upon a time he had clear ed up n acre of mesquite brush on Mose's phlegmatic hide persuading him thathe was wrong in his desire to take a certain left-hand road. Mose w.s finally convinced and proceeded to the right; but to his disgtst, thf old prospector later learned that a rich strike had been made £ short distance ahead on the road Mose had wanted to dent with his four hooves. Since when, he explained, he left the choice of roads tc Mose. After a few sarcastic remarks I laughed and decided that majbe the old fellow had a good reason for deferring to the burro's guidaice. "Okay," I said. "As long as he heads in the general direction of th< North Star I'm with you." It was about noon of thf second day out that Mose landed us in the midst of as strange a performance as the eyes of a white man could rest upon, the cremator ceremonies accorded a deceased member of a certain well-known Indj.n tribe. The funeral pyre was biilt of mesquite poles, thickly criss-crossed with arrow weeds, to the heigit of four feet. This pyre was so constructed that the corpse placed atop o' it would fall to the center when it collapsed. The Indians gathered aroui/i the pyre were in full tribal regalia, with an abundance of feathers '.nd gaudy-colored paints. At a signal from the chief a torch was appjed to the pyre and the whole band of mourn- ers gave voice to a weird,' > ailing chant which grew louder and louder as the flames mounted higher The frenzied wailing and dancing reached a climax when the pyre col .psed and the corpse dropped. According to Indian theology, this is thonoment when the spirit of the dead leaves the body and makes its flijjt to the Happy Hunting Grouids. What ceremony, if any followed the collapse of the funeral pyre, I do not know, since Mose rrew restless and insisted that we be again on our way in the general irection of Old Polaris. It would be too tedious o give every detail of our trek northward. We paralleled the Colorado ver to the west of us, roundei some foot- hills to the east, and at time: made our way through low pisses. After a few days of such going, th< old prospector became upset aid irritable over his failure to locate a crtain watering place he had vsited years before and felt certain of fin