Oak Creek Canyon in Radiant Color

Enduring gray rocks and slow-growing lichens contrast with the short-lived splash of a bigtooth maple tree in full autumn display, presenting a vivid tableau of transitory color.

[FOLLOWING PANEL, PAGES 18 AND 19] Bright hues of yellow, burnt orange, scarlet and green tint bigtooth maple trees along a rocky wash near Cave Springs in Oak Creek Canyon.

Tales of LOST TREASURE THE STATE REMAINS a GOLD MINE of MISPLACED LOOT

Tales of lost treasure, like the lure of gold, brought countless fortune seekers to Arizona during the last 150 years or so. Even today, such stories of lost gold mines, newly discovered treasure maps, buried riches and hidden loot from robberies continue to excite our imaginations.

Many of the stories carry a grain of truth, but the details have been distorted in the repeated retelling. Others are more hope than fact. And still others are downright lies, told by con men and swindlers desirous of quick gain. Who can tell for sure which ones are fact-based and which aren't? From 1992 to 1999, Arizona Highways carried a monthly series called “Legends of the Lost,” which told many of these treasure tales. But the series was halted when we simply couldn't find any more stories to report.

Highways carried a monthly series called “Legends of the Lost,” which told many of these treasure tales. But the series was halted when we simply couldn't find any more stories to report.

Since then, we have been on an intensive search to find additional legends of missing or misplaced loot. We think we have found new ones the stories published here - but some do have a vague familiarity. Then again, many of these stories have similar characteristics. After all, there are only so many ways to lose a gold mine. In any event, enjoy these stories. And, if some day you stumble across a lost treasure, let us know and we'll add it to the lore.

LEGEND of the NAVAJO TURQUOISE GEYSER BY KERRY CHRISTENSEN

On the Navajo Indian Reservation in northeastern Arizona, a deep cave formed by a geyser served as an altar for the ancient Puebloans to sacrifice to their gods their most prized possessions turquoise nuggets, also known as the Southwest's "blue diamonds."

The hidden cliff dwelling is called the Turquoise Shrine. The ancient Indians believed the geyser's spray dealt out punishment to those who opposed the wishes of the gods, and so they collected their most valuable pieces of turquoise and tossed them into the geyser, hoping to appease the gods.

Although some people knew about the bejeweled cavern, and some even knew its location, they did not get very far into the cave because of the geyser.

The Turquoise Shrine, according to legend, lies hidden and lost among the eroded canyon walls near the ArizonaUtah border.

The Navajos have passed the legend of the shrine down through the generations. Thomas Penfield, in A Guide to Treasure in Arizona, said only three Navajos and two Anglos knew the exact location of the turquoise treasure, and they kept the location secret. For years, the Navajos had concealed the shine's entrance to divert fortune hunters from trespassing on their sacred ground. But the truth eventually seeped to the surface when the cavern's opening collapsed and revealed several pieces of turquoise.

Toney Richardson wrote of the shrine in the February 1948 issue of Desert Magazine. He said Todachene Nez, a Navajo friend, took him to the Turquoise Shrine, but first surprised the writer by revealing a location that Richardson had passed several times. Nez led Richardson to the lip of a canyon on horseback, and then into the canyon. They followed a trail to the bottom of a cliff.

The great monolithic rock housing the Turquoise Shrine rose at least 125 feet above the floor of the canyon.Nez and Richardson approached the intimidating cliff. They scaled the rock for more than an hour until they reached the top where the opening of the Turquoise Shrine, between 8 and 10 feet wide, lay in wait. Richardson said he heard a "subterranean roar" coming from the depths of the angered crag. The sound grew to a threatening grumble, and then faded into a numbing quietude.

Looking down into the heart of the shrine, Nez identified a dish-shaped basin made by water. Once again, a powerful growl escaped from the center of the shrine. A strong spray of boiling water spouted to almost the top of the cavern, blocking the men's vision. But it soon receded, allowing the two to gaze into the depths of its waters.

The geyser protected the turquoise encased in the darkness of the shrine. Its forceful spray cost the lives of several men who ventured into the shrine. Nez told Richardson he was the only Indian who had ever entered the Turquoise Shrine and lived. Richardson listened to his friend relay his knowledge of the shrine, as well as the Navajo history surrounding it.

According to Nez, as Richardson recalled it, two white men, Ben and Bill Williams, found the shrine in 1885. At that time, the geyser reportedly sprayed 12 feet high. But now the water lay calm.

The Williamses witnessed the water bursting from the rocks. After they watched the display, they reported gathering a flour sackful of turquoise left behind by the receding water.

Navajo tribal members had heard rumors about the shrine, but they did not discover the exact location until after 1900. According to Navajo legend, ancient cliff dwellers deposited offerings of turquoise and sacred objects in the hole. As a result, the cave built up quite a collection of "blue diamonds."

The legend says a Navajo man named Hoshteen searched for the correct location of the shrine; however, the reasons for his doing so remain unclear. When he found it, he scaled the monolith and discovered an abundance of turquoise at the top of the rock structure. Then, looking down into the cave from the monolith's peak, he saw the turquoise lying in the underground shrine. He then sent two Navajos down into the rock to gather armfuls of turquoise, but the geyser caught up with the unlucky souls.

One of the men traveled farther into the cavern, but like his companion, never made it back to the surface. He got stuck, and then started screaming, for the sounds of rushing water warned of impending doom. The water quickly blasted to the top of the monolith. After the water retreated into the cavern once again, Hoshteen spied the broken bodies of his two companions.

Despite the dangers presented in seeking out the Turquoise Shrine, a man named Redshirt explored the area for signs of more turquoise a few years after Hoshteen's attempt, according to Richardson. After a close study, he concluded that the geyser streamed to the top of the hole at timed intervals, which gave him an idea. Someone could be lowered into the cavern, and then, after a short time, be lifted out before the geyser's water spouted. But his plan had a flaw, and it cost him his life.

Thinking they had timed it just right, Redshirt's men lowered him into the heart of the roiling rock, and he began to forage for turquoise. As he searched, he discovered several bodies of victims of the waterspout. Immediately, he called for his men to raise him out of the unpredictable cavern, but the water had already begun to unleash its energy. He had timed the spray of the geyser incorrectly, and succumbed to its punishing force. The natural faucet surged up through the ground, and only the frayed end of Redshirt's rope remained after the initial onslaught of water.

After hearing all the stories about the Turquoise Shrine, Nez became curious about the cavern himself. He studied it for a time, and realized that the water level of the shrine changed, depending on the amount of rainfall received earlier that year. So, in the 1930s, Nez daringly had two men lower him into the cave, knowing that the area had a recent shortage of rainfall. When he reached the bottom, his feet slipped out from under him. He heard a rush of water, and the two men tried to lift him from the hole. Water enveloped Nez, but the two men continued to pull him to safety. They got him out before the waters of the shrine could squeeze the life from his lungs, and Nez soon recovered from his near drowning. He said large pieces of turquoise covered the bottom of the water hole. Citing the belief of the local Navajos, Nez reiterated that the ancient Puebloans must have tossed their most sacred possessions into the cavern as an offering to the gods.

Both Nez and Richardson agreed the location of the Turquoise Shrine should remain a secret to protect the Navajo legend, as well as lives. When the two men searched the rock together, they refrained from entering the uncharted depths. They did not have the proper equipment for exploring, even if they wanted to give up their lives in exchange.

Although the secret entrance to the Turquoise Shrine eventually collapsed, the allure of treasure locked high within the walls of Navajoland persists.

GOLDEN CHIMNEY of the ARAVAIPAS

If the legend holds, a spiral-shaped hole on a hilltop near Winkelman hides a treasure worth dying for. Call it the Squaw Man's Gold, Lost Yuma Ledge or the Golden Chimney of the Aravaipas. The tale has traveled under each of those names, accompanied by an even wider assortment of "facts."

By any calling, it cannot be tossed aside as nonsense. Too much tantalizing circumstance stands in the way. And the disintegrating bones of one Thomas F. McLean in a shallow rock grave west of the Baboquivari Mountains testify to his belief that he'd found a golden bonanza.

McLean was born in Smithland, Missouri, in about 1830. As a young man he gained appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, but was courtmartialed in 1848 for numerous violations of academy regulations and drifted to the West. Bitterness at his military experience led McLean to renounce his ties to the white race. Over time he moved closer to the Indians he'd met around Yuma, and eventually married one. His life consisted of traveling the desert with his wife in a wagon stocked with calico, beads, ammunition and staple goods that he sold to Indians throughout southern Arizona. In his new life, the disgraced former soldier was no longer called McLean. On the trading routes, he was simply "Yuma."

"He was scarcely known by any other name," reported the Arizona Weekly Enterprise newspaper for April 11, 1891, "and had adopted the breech cloth and moccasins as a savage costume, and fed upon pachita."

Census records for 1860 list Yuma as living near the Overland Mail Station on its route between Tucson and the Pima Indian villages. He had close ties as well with the Aravaipa Apaches, who sometimes settled their debts with gold nuggets or free gold from quartz. This drew Yuma's passionate interest.

Here the story splinters. One version says he came to know the Aravaipa leader Eskiminzin. Yuma approached the chief with a deal: Show me the source of your gold, and in return I'll hand over all my goods. Eskiminzin agreed, but Yuma was allowed only one visit to the treasure site. Everything he could carry away on that trip was his. But he could never reveal what he saw without bringing severe consequences to himself and the chief.

On the pretext of going on a deer hunt, the two rode into the mountains north of Camp Grant. They stopped at a ledge indented with a cuplike depression, 8 feet across. In the account of writer Victor Stoyanow, Eskiminzin looked away, absolving himself of complicity in a deal that exposed his people to endless trouble, while Yuma dropped to his knees and scraped at the depression with his hunting knife.

"He suddenly came upon the top of the chimney-rose quartz with enough free gold so that the point of his knife couldn't fit between the chunks," Stoyanow wrote in Desert magazine in 1968.

Another version, given prominence in newspapers of the late 19th century, doesn't mention Eskiminzin. It says that when Yuma arrived at his favorite trading location, near the confluence of the San Pedro and Gila rivers, Apaches came in large numbers to trade. He would often go with several of them for a mysterious trip, always returning loaded down with free gold.

The story of how Yuma met his end is also dependent on the teller. Stoyanow contends that after his encounter with Eskiminzin, Yuma returned to Tucson and joined with a man named Crittenden. They returned to the site of the gold, and in the A story circulating in 1871 frontier Phoenix tells of two prospectors who followed an Indian into Bronco Canyon in Gila County in search of the man's gold. Supposedly they found it, mined it, but then buried their treasure before leaving the site to get better equipment.

They never returned. Both died, one violently, believing their gold lay safely hidden.

The story begins with the Indian who traveled periodically from Bronco Canyon to the store at Fort McDowell to trade chunks of gold ore in exchange for food and other supplies.

The bartering continued for some time before the two prospectors, remembered only as Brown and Davis (or maybe Davies, depending on what version of the story you follow), happened to be lounging in the store when the Indian shuffled in. His pockets overflowed with pieces of ore matted together with coarse wires and nuggets of gold. The man used the quartz to barter for supplies. The prospectors were amazed. They'd never encountered rocks as rich as those that lay only a few feet from them on the shop counter.

The proprietor said the man was a Yavapai who frequented the small store, always paying with the rich ore. He thought the Indian lived northeast of the fort in Bronco Canyon. Brown and Davis had been prospecting the hot hills and arroyos of eastern Arizona without success. With a quick glance at each other, the two quickly left the store to follow the Indian.

According to John D. Mitchell, author of the book Lost Mines and Buried Treasures Along the Old Frontier, this is what ensued: The Indian started his trek across the d desert with the men following from a discreet distance, curiosity mixed with a childlike hopefulness fueling their pursuit. After traveling 10 miles through the desert, the Indian passed along Coon Creek Butte, and soon after dropped into Bronco Canyon.

The mountains loomed larger, some black and ominous, as they continued on their journey. The vastness of the canyon encompassed them; on their right, a hillside towered steeply, topping out into a rolling mesa. Precipitous arroyos led into the mountain, and it was into one of these arroyos that the Indian disappeared.

After losing the trail, the two men decided to return to the fort and purchase supplies sufficient to last them several weeks so they could explore in and around the canyon. They headed their supply-laden

BURIED TREASURE in BRONCO CANYON

dead of night used axes to dig up 30 pounds of quartz. They packed it into their saddles and hauled it to Tucson, where they received astonishing news: The quartz assayed at more than $50,000 in gold per ton.

Either by boast or accident, word of Yuma's find spread. The Arizona Daily Citizen reported on February 24, 1887, that several of Tucson's finest citizens inspected the gold and vouched for "the marvelous richness" of the ore. "There was enoughfor all, and great fortunes were anticipated by those who were to participate in the new El Dorado," the Citizen reported. But, according to this version of the tale, Yuma feared the consequences of his According to Stoyanow, Crittenden emerged from his self-imposed exile in 1870 and set out alone to plunder the gold-en chimney. When Crittenden stopped atSan Pedro, along with his Colt revolver, all its bullets spent. He was never again seen and no body was recovered.

But here again, memory, fact and fantasy combine to cook a contradictory and frusFrating stew of yarns.

Frating stew.

Noted Tucson pioneer Charles Poston knew McLean and stated publicly that he died in 1861. Could Crittenden, believing great fortune awaited him, really have stayed in concealment for all those years?

And the Citizen reported that Yuma's partner on his second trip to the site wasn't Crittenden at all, but an Indian agent named John D. Walker, and that Yuma was actually killed by O'odham Indians afraid he was an informant for the Apaches, their long-time enemy.

The Citizen's coverage also noted the pattern of misfortune and death that befell those to whom the story of the gold was passed. It began with Walker, who was physically unable to return to Yuma's ledge. He died in 1873, after revealing its location to John Sweeney, a blacksmith unable to hold either his booze or a secret.

Shortly before his death in Florence, the gold was on a large hill north of Camp Grant. less than 100 feet to the left of a trail leading into the mountains.

"He once attempted to visit the place, but was taken ill with acute kidney trouble and suffered months of illness," the Citizen reported. "He has since intended several times to visit the place, but some obstacle has as often intervened. He believes he can find it by judicious search . . . and in a few weeks he will make another effort to reach the wonderful spot where gold can be hewn out with an axe."

Brown never retrieved the gold. Some 100 years later, the writer Stoyanow, gripped with the fever, mounted his own search and was also unsuccessful. But his effort brought him to a different place, Crozier Peak in the Tortilla Mountains. In his mind, this was the certain spot of the gold.

"The northern slope of Crozier Peak is one of the most awful pieces of terrain in the world," he wrote. "The whole complex is a crazy quilt. You get the feeling, stand-ing on Crozier, that one false step will put you through a trapdoor of loose gravel and plummet you down a 10,000-foot elevator Sweeney whispered the location to Tucso-Camp Grant to inform the commander of

shaft to the gates of hell-or maybe the

His plans, he was advised against proceedgolden chimney."

nan Charles O. Brown, who, for whatever

Knowing, but did so anyway. Ten days later his

reason, made no secret of what he knew -

horse was found tethered to a tree near the

burros out across the desert, following the same trail they had used earlier. That night they camped at a small spring on the south fork of the canyon. A few yards from where they lay, a stream of water bub-bled from the west bank, ran several hun-dred feet and then was lost in the sand. The men slept fretfully that night, eager for the rising sun that would light the way to the riches they would soon discover in the wild brush of the canyon.

Within a few days, Brown and Davis found an 18-inch quartz vein on the west side of the canyon. The vein began in a patch of manzanita brush in a rocky, rough-cut wash. The site looked as though it had recently been worked; small piles of ore lay scattered near the bush and under nearby paloverde trees along with various shards of pottery, indicating that in times past, Indian women may have mined the ore.

Brown and Davis returned to their camp and constructed a crude apparatus for pul-verizing ore, called an arrastra. After min-ing and milling nearly 25 sacks of the quartz, the partners estimated they had $70,000 or more in gold in their posses-sion. The men stored the gold in a deep hole under a large, prominent rock that stood near their equipment on the east bank of the creek. Shortly after conceal-ing their gold, the prospectors headed out of the canyon, prepared to return to their hometown of San Francisco to obtain better-quality machinery. They kept a few smaller sacks of gold to take with them.

As the men made their way out of the canyon, according to Mitchell, Indians-thought to be Apaches-attacked. The Indians rode full tilt through the canyon, firing at the surprised men. Davis fell, sprawled on the ground, a bullet having gone through his head and killing him instantly. Brown lunged for cover, grabbed his rifle and began firing. He killed three of the Indians and wounded a fourth before the attackers abandoned the fight and disappeared into the rocky canyon.

Brown managed to escape. A piece of rich ore he carried in his pocket was all he had to show for the weeks he'd toiled in the relentless sun. Later Brown had it assayed in San Francisco and found it con-tained $84,000 per ton in gold. Brown was scarred from his experience and kept his secret, waiting until it was safe to return to Indian country to retrieve his precious treasure.

Years later, after the Indians had been pacified somewhat and relocated to reser-vations, Brown decided it was time to re-turn to the scene where he'd struck it rich. He made it to Phoenix, but as he gathered supplies and an outfit for his trek, he be-came sick. On his deathbed in the hospital, Brown told the story of the strike he and Davis had made. Brown said the gold they'd collected had been buried in a shallow hole between a large boulder and a stratum of white vol-canic ash. Brown suspected the gold still was hidden there, waiting for someone luck-ier than he to find it.

EASTERN ARIZONA'S BLACK BURRO MINE

When the prospector who found gold near the Arizona-New Mexico bor-der disappeared, he left the secret of the mine's location with his best friend and traveling companion, his black burro. Old-time prospectors needed a mule or burro to survive in the desert. The animal carried the provisions in the search for riches and carried the ore if the prospector got lucky. In fact, so many prospectors and their animals traversed the area between the San Francisco River and Eagle Creek in eastern Arizona that, in times past, there was a trail named for a prospector well known in the area-the Old Mansfield Trail. On this route, the legend of the Black Burro Mine unfolded. In 1826, three unidentified prospectors traveled along the hot, dusty trail, hoping to make a rich strike. Somewhere around the area of today's Clifton in Greenlee County, they discovered a black burro grazing along the side of the trail. One traveler noticed a pack tied to the saddle. The trio, thinking the owner must be near, started hollering. After hearing no answer, they waited, hop-ing that no harm had befallen the owner. Several hours passed, but the worried men found no sign of anyone. Finally, they inspected the pack and saw two new rawhide sacks lashed to the saddle. Each sack contained a full load of rich gold ore samples. Not only curious about the source but fearful of being accused of stealing a man's burro, the men made camp to wait for the owner to return and claim his property. That night, the men heard strange rustling sounds. Fearing Apaches, they remained silent. The next morning, they once again searched the area for some trace of the burro's missing owner but found nothing. The men added the burro and its nuggets to their party. Their luck soon turned bad. For as the travelers neared the end of the Old Mansfield Trail near Eagle Creek, Apaches ambushed them. Only one man survived by ducking under a small ledge hidden Behind a thicket. After eluding the attackers, the man returned to the site where the Apaches left his fallen comrades. He found the ground littered with the rich gold ore the Apaches cast away as useless rocks. Probably fearful of the Indians returning, he pressed on, leaving the nuggets behind. The survivor made it to a Mexican village. There he told his story, but no one seemed interested in the lost gold mine tale. The man lacked proof, so the settlers had only his word. When no one organized a search for the source of the gold, the man drifted on never to be heard from again. Who was the unfortunate owner of the burro? The question remains unanswered. Some people surmise that it might have been the prospector Mansfield himself, who was rumored to have a rich mine. He also supposedly died at the hands of the Apaches, though no one ever recovered his body. No dates verify the apparent deaths of Mansfield and the two prospectors, although the December 1901 issue of Munsey's Magazine mentions the mysterious burro laden with gold ore. Could the Black Burro Mine and the Mansfield Mine be the same? Or were two mines hidden beneath the sagebrush and cacti along the old trail? Only the black burro knew for certain.

GERONIMO'S STORY of HIDDEN GOLD

Trapped in the politics of the devastating Indian Wars during the 1860s, Geronimo tried to bribe an Army officer in an attempt to gain his freedom from prison at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The legendary Apache war leader told the officer he would reveal the location of a rich gold mine on Apache land in exchange for his release. According to Raymond W. Voss in A Reference Guide to Lost Mines and Hidden Treasures of Arizona, Old and New, the exact location of the gold mine if it really exists-remains unknown. Some believe the gold mine is on the Verde River, possibly near Fort McDowell, while others insist it's in the Superstition Mountains or one of Arizona's several Sycamore Canyons. Geronimo was born in approximately 1829 near the Arizona-New Mexico border. His mother named him Goyahkla, "one who yawns." His skill as an Apache warrior came to light around 1851 after Mexican soldiers killed his mother, wife and three children, along with other Apaches, in a massacre outside Janos, Mexico. During the attack, the young males of the tribe were trading goods in Janos near the southeastern border of Arizona and returned to a ravaged home. The emotional devastation he suffered after the massacre sparked the desire for revenge in the heart of Geronimo.

According to legend, through this expe-rience Geronimo received the power to become a medicine man and shaman while seeking solitude in the wilderness.

Sitting still and weeping with his head bowed, he heard a voice call his name, “Goyahkla,” four times a magical num-ber to Apaches. Then it said: “No gun can ever kill you. I will take the bullets from the guns of the Mexicans, so they will have nothing but powder and I will guide your arrows.” Although Geronimo and Juh (Geronimo's brother-in-law) and young Nedni (chief-tobe) had led raids from the Sierra Madre of Mexico into southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico against both Mexicans and Anglos, their fury found full force after the Janos massacre. The devastation of that day spurred a lifetime of hatred in Geronimo for both Mexican and white people.

Geronimo rallied Apaches from tribes throughout Arizona, creating a worthy army of unified resistance, thwarting the military authorities of both the United States and Mexico.

Around 1852, under the leadership of Geronimo, Mangas Coloradas, Juh and Cochise (leader of the Chiricahuas), a band of Apache warriors joined to exact revenge on the residents of Arizpe, a Mexican town in northern Sonora, Mexico, where troops were already stationed for its defense. Because of Geronimo's great loss, the Apache leaders believed that he should head their retributive attack against Arizpe.

First the warriors ambushed troops who'd come out to meet them from the town. Seeking dead Mexicans to avenge their own dead, the Apaches slaughtered the eight men in full view of the town.

The next day, the whole Mexican force two companies of cavalry and two of infantry came out to attack. After battling two hours, the Apache warriors, fighting with bows and arrows and spears in close quarters, defeated the Arizpe force. It was here, according to tradition, that Goyahkla received the name Geronimo.

According to Geronimo's legend, Mexican soldiers fighting for their lives were probably pleading for St. Jerome to protect them when they screamed, “Geronimo! Geronimo!” as the fierce Apache leader attacked. Geronimo is the Spanish word for Jerome.

From the 1850s to the 1880s, Geronimo led a small group of Apache warriors in southeastern Arizona, waging war against those who dared to restrict his group to a reservation, raiding towns and murdering those who stood in their way.

According to Thomas Penfield's version of the legendary gold mine in the book Dig Here!, Geronimo and the Apache people discovered a rich gold vein in the side wall of the Sycamore Canyon that is located at the mouth of the Verde River, northwest of Clarkdale.

High atop the canyon wall, angered Apaches rolled boulders down onto the Spanish camp. They made eerie noises throughout the night, gnawing on the minds of the Spanish.

Spanish soldiers on their way to New Mexico soon seized their treasure, claiming it as their own. The soldiers continued to New Mexico, but left behind a few men to guard the rich gold deposits and to construct a smelter-a furnace to extricate gold from its ore.

High atop the canyon wall, angered Apaches rolled boulders down onto the Spanish camp. They carried out ambushes when the opportunity arose. They made eerie noises throughout the night, gnawing on the minds of the Spanish.

But the soldiers refused to leave. They continued to tunnel into the canyon wall to extract the rich ore, which they sent to the smelter for processing. When enough gold bars rested on the cave floor, the soldiers decided to transport the rich treasure to Mexico on mules. They planned to recruit men in Mexico to help them uproot the Apaches who continued to harass their camp, but they never reached Mexico.

As the soldiers hiked out of the canyon, the Indians made their move, ambushing the small mining party. Two men survived the attack by waiting in hiding for the Apaches to leave the area, and then went back to their camp. They stored the remaining gold bars in the mining tunnel, then sealed the entrance.

After nightfall, the two soldiers beat it out of the canyon, heading to Tubac. There they told their story to local prospectors who went back to search for the mine themselves. They found the remains of a stone building, but were unable to locate the buried gold bars or the gold mine.

In 1853, a prospector named Clifford Haines discovered a Spanish mining camp high in Sycamore Canyon while hiding from a band of Apaches. He quickly made a map of the area and left the canyon, according to Penfield in A Guide to Treasure in Arizona. Although he tried to get people to return with him to the mine, no one wished to brave the attacks of hostile Indians.

John T. Squires became the next owner of the map, and he successfully led a group of miners into Sycamore Canyon. After working the mine one summer, a group of Apaches attacked them, allowing only a few men to escape unscathed.

The Indians then destroyed all traces of the mine site to dissuade future potential treasure seekers from prospecting on their tribal land. Although some men from Squires' original search party returned to look for the mine later, it had by then virtually disappeared.

After years of warring with the white men and Mexicans, Geronimo surrendered for the last time to Brig. Gen. Nelson A. Miles in September 1886 in Skeleton Canyon on the western side of the Peloncillo Mountains near the Mexico border.

Geronimo later used his knowledge of the canyon gold mine and the promise of vast wealth and good fortune to bribe the guard at Fort Sill in exchange for his freedom, according to John D. Mitchell in Lost Mines of the Great Southwest. He wanted to return to his homeland in Arizona one last time before his death, but an officer at Fort Sill discovered the proposed bribe, and the conspiring soldier was court-martialed.

Although a number of people thought Geronimo might have created the tale to escape the clutches of the Army, many others believed Geronimo's lost gold mine existed.

PIRACY on the COLORADO LEADS to MISSING SILVER BARS

The steamer Gila made small waves in the Colorado River as it trudged downstream toward Yuma. The ship's crew had no idea that a pirate lay in wait to pillage the ship's gold cargo and escape with the treasure in tow. The man disappeared, and the gold, as well as its hiding place, remain buried in the memories of a Territorial legend.

As the constant drone of the Gila lulled the waters of the Colorado River one morning in 1880, a man dressed as a soldier stood on the north bank of Cottonwood Island, 30 miles north of Fort Mojave, and flagged down the ship.

The soldier's possessions included a fully loaded Henry rifle and two horses tethered to the bushes on the Arizona side of the river, according to Fred L. Kuller, a writer for Frontier Times. Capt. Jack Mellon recognized the man's signal of distress, and ordered his first mate and two Indians to pick him up in a small boat alongside the steamer.The boat reached the ship and the man climbed aboard. He said he had lost his companion while hunting wild game on the island. He believed his friend returned to their camp to organize a search party for him. However, the captain and his men soon learned differently.

Earlier that day, Mellon had overseen the loading of about a half-ton of silver onto the Gila, and he personally placed a strongbox containing 300 ounces of gold inside a small safe in his shipboard cabin. Thegold and silver came from the mining camp of Eldorado Canyon, near Nelson, Nevada, and the riches lay under the management of the Southwestern Mining Co.

Kuller erroneously wrote that the gold bullion was worth about $40,000, but Arizona's Department of Mines and Mineral Resources reported that it was valued at $6,000. Because the level of the river was too low for the steamer to make continuous trips to the mining camp year-round, Mellon waited until spring before he started down the river.

In Kuller's article, he related a personal account of what William Balderston, an eyewitness to the soldier's piracy, had experienced aboard the steamer. He wrote that after the soldier reached the deck of the steamer, he pointed his rifle at Mellon and demanded he hand over the strongbox with the gold in it.

Mellon played innocent and said that he did not possess such a strongbox, but the soldier knew otherwise, for he had observed the captain carrying the strongbox aboard the ship that morning. The silver bars were stacked on the sturdy deck of the ship.

The thief ordered the crew to throw their weapons onto the deck and he then kicked the guns into the river.

At rifle point, the soldier directed Mellon and his men to the captain's cabin, where the gold-filled strongbox sat in a heavy safe. He ordered Mellon to open the safe and give him the strongbox. After Mellon complied, the soldier exchanged clothes with Wharton Barker, the treasurer of the Southwestern Mining Co., in an attempt to disguise himself while on shore.

Making his way out to the ship's deck, the soldier ordered the crew to lower the skiff, and then place the strongbox into it. As an afterthought, the soldier directed the crew to start loading the silver bars into the small boat. The weight soon became too much after a couple hundred pounds had been loaded, and the thief ordered the transfer stopped. He told Barker to "keep the change," according to Balderston, as he jumped onto the loaded skiff and pad-dled his way toward the Arizona shore. Defenseless, the crew of the Gila could not do anything except continue on to Hardyville, where they formed a posse to track the mysterious soldier.

The San Bernardino Times reported that the posse discovered the trail of the sol-dier's horses leading away from the river-bank where the boat waited, but they lost the tracks on the ridge high above the river. They hiked to Crossman Spring, today called Crescent Spring, and found the body of a horse, which they assumed the soldier shot after it broke one of its legs. In addi-tion, the posse learned of a man who had traveled through the area four days earlier. At that point, they decided to "give up the chase and let the company recover its own bullion," according to the Times report.

According to Thomas Penfield in A Guide to Treasure in Arizona, residents of Hardyville claimed to have witnessed a man traveling with a light load passing through the area. Many people believed that he hid the stolen silver somewhere near Crossman Spring when his second horse became disabled. The soldier then shot the horse and continued to carry the gold with him as he evaded the grasp of the posse.

Even though he supposedly left the silver bullion somewhere near Crossman Spring, no one has discovered the cache of the missing treasure despite many attempts by optimistic fortune hunters. The silver remained hidden, and the gold disappeared with the long-forgotten soldier, or so it appeared.

In 1900, a miner found a bar of silver a few hundred feet north of Crossman Spring while he was digging a shallow well. His find encouraged more people to search the area again; however, they found no more silver bars.

"This single bar was evidently a stray from the larger cache hidden somewhere nearby for it hardly seems likely that each bar would have been hidden separately," wrote Kuller in the Times.

Today, lost in the geology of Crescent Spring, lies the answer to a question long-buried but hardly forgotten.

LOST MERCURY TUBES TREASURE

The steady creak of traveling freight wagons filled with iron-cased mercury rattled through the vast terrain of Coconino County as the wagons headed south toward Flagstaff from Lee's Ferry. En route, six of the 26 tubes, or flasks, disappeared, creating a mystery that hasn't been solved. In 1902, the wagon train carrying mer-cury reportedly valued at $65,000, accord-ing to Thomas Penfield's book, A Guide to Treasure in Arizona, rolled through north-ern Arizona from the Colorado River to meet a train waiting in Flagstaff. The mer-cury rested in flasks 6 inches in diameter and 10 feet long.

Each flask weighed approximately 76.5 pounds and, according to the legend, had a market value of $2,500 per flask, but Ari-zona's Department of Mines and Mineral Resources reports the flasks were actually worth $44.10 each at the time. In 2003, the market value for mercury was $170 per flask, according to Nyal Niemuth, mining engineer with the Department of Mines and Mineral Resources.

When the men unloaded the shipment in Flagstaff, only 20 flasks remained in the wagon, leaving six unaccounted for. Although the freighters claimed ignorance regarding the disappearance of the trea-sure, some believed otherwise. In the late 19th century, mercury became a prized commodity in the mining world because of its ability to extract gold and silver from pulverized ore with its poisonous charm. Using a process called amalgamation, miners combined mercury with gold or silver to create an amalgam, according to Niemuth. This fusion of elements made it easier to collect the gold or silver after sub-jecting the mixture to fire-refining processes. The properties of mercury allowed the gold and silver to dissolve into it, much like iced tea and sugar, until the miners recovered the gold or silver from the mercury.

Although mercury aided miners in their dig for treasure, its chemical properties con-tained vast amounts of poison, especially in its liquid form. Many times, miners fell prey to the deadly mercury fumes.

Many believed the lost mercury tubes treasure lay buried somewhere in Bitter Springs, 15 miles south of Lee's Ferry, according to Penfield in his book. However, the location of the mercury remained a mystery until some Indians revealed that they had witnessed men burying the flasks in the sand at the base of Echo Cliffs near Tanner Wash in northern Arizona.

The only discrepancy in the Indians' story lay in the fact that they saw the men burying 10 flasks instead of six.

In response to the Indians' report, a man named Abe Cole investigated the base of Echo Cliffs himself. After searching for miles along its base, Cole spied the ends of several flasks sticking out from the sand. Due to the heavy weight of the iron flasks, Cole failed to retrieve them.

Soon after, Cole was chased away by a sandstorm that possibly covered the treasure site. When Cole returned to dig up the mercury, he could not find it. The fury of the rag-ing sandstorm masked any sign of the flasks.

Despite many hunts for the toxic treasure, it apparently remains safely in the ground, possibly to stay there until revealed again by the winds.

The location of the mercury remained a mystery until some Indians revealed that they had witnessed men burying the Flasks in the sand.

TALE of GOLDEN BULLETS

The diary of French-Canadian Francois Xavier Aubry, who amassed a fortune in the early 1800s as a trader and freighter in the Southwest, tells of seeing Indians in the Tonto Basin using solid gold bullets to shoot rabbits.

But the Apaches, who inhabited both the mountainous country below and the forests along the Mogollon Rim, would not disclose the location of their gold source. Because the Apaches did not work mines, it was assumed the riches were free gold, ore picked up on the surface. But where?

Aubry was no ordinary merchant. He had built a reputation on speed, traveling once in 1848 from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Independence, Missouri, in five days and 16 hours, a record for the time. He hauled freight between the two cities twice each year while other freighters could make the journey only once. Aubry, whose feats earned him the nickname “Skimmer of the Plains,” amassed a trading fortune of about $250,000, according to historian Dan L.. Thrapp in his Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography.

The Southwest was a violent place in those days, and Aubry had numerous skirmishes with various Indian tribes. In one of his trading forays into California, his company fought with Mojave Indians along the Colorado River, taking several casualties, Thrapp reported.

His troupe had another serious encounter with Coyotero Apaches in the Tonto Basin, according to author Leland Lovelace in his book, Lost Mines and Hidden Treasures. Aubry and his party of 18 were ambushed there by the Coyoteros, whose home territory was the forests of the Mogollon Rim. Though some of Aubry's band were struck Aubry reported that he had seen one of the Indians place small gold bullets in a pistol and shoot a rabbit that the Indians later presented to him as a peace offering.

down, the group managed to repel the attack with their newly acquired Colt pistols. Later during the same journey, Aubry's party camped in the Tonto Basin, but their suspicions were aroused when a small group of Apaches approached the camp. As it turned out, however, the Indians came to trade, offering gold nuggets for food, tobacco and clothing. Aubry recorded in his diary that they had received nearly $1,500 in gold nuggets in exchange for clothes the men had gathered from among their belongings.

In another diary entry, Aubry reported that he had seen one of the Indians place small gold bullets in a pistol and shoot a rabbit that the Indians later presented to him as a peace offering.

Rumors of the golden bullets spread throughout the frontier, but did they exist? If not, why would Aubry make such an entry in his diary?

The answer, unfortunately, died with Aubry in 1854. At the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe, Aubry drew a pistol on a newspaperman who had disparaged some of Aubry's feats. But the pistol proved no match for the newspaperman's Bowie knife. Aubry, both rich and famous, was stabbed to death in a street brawl at the age of 30. A jury acquitted the newspaperman, Richard H. Weightman, of the killing, ruling self defense.

But other stories of Apache gold in the area lend credence to the belief that the Indians did find the precious metal, and that Aubry really saw bullets made of gold. [See the following “Lost Gold Mine of the Tonto Apaches.”]

LOST GOLD MINE of the TONTO APACHES

The bodies of two soldiers discovered in 1875 on the northern face of Mount Ord in the Mazatzal Moun-tains hinted at a rich gold find that cost them their lives. According to local lore, the nameless soldiers probably foundthe location of gold-laden white quartz rumored to lie within the homelands of the Tonto Apaches. Empty shells from a U.S. Army-issue rifle littered an area not far from where shepherds found the skeletons and the remains of Army uniforms. Most people assumed the soldiers had found the quartz vein and were ambushed by the Apaches before they reached the nearby Camp McDowell. The unlucky soldiers reportedly heard About the gold from soldiers stationed with them at Camp Reno who traded supplies for bits of ore brought in by Indians. According to historian Jim Schreier, in his book Camp Reno: Outpost in Apacheria, 1867-1870, the ore samples “confirmed rumors of placer gold not far from the general site of planned Camp Reno.” The Army officially established Camp Reno in 1867 to protect settlers from the Tonto Apaches, particularly the band headed by the colorful but resistant Delshay. As a military strategy, he would periodically offer peace and blame his enemies for raids committed by his band or allies. As lucky as he was crafty, Delshay eluded capture numerous times even while wounded, escaping to the Mazatzal or the Sierra Ancha mountains northeast of today's Phoenix. Despite the behavior of their leader, the Apaches continued trading with the soldiers at the small military enclave. The rich ore briefly infected many of the enlisted men with gold fever. However, the frequency of Apache attacks cured most of the stricken soldiers stationed at Camp Reno and inhibited further prospecting. The mystery of the Tonto Apache gold vein inspired author and treasure hunter John D. Mitchell to research it. In an article published in Desert Magazine he claimed that gold from this mine still came into the Phoenix-Scottsdale area by way of Apache wood haulers as recently as 1942, only 67 years after the soldiers' grisly remains turned up. Mitchell also said, “One old Indian described the ore as coming from a white quartz stringer, the eight-foot hole being covered with a packrat nest.” Perhaps the soldiers found the gold, but the location has since been lost. Floods could have washed away the landmark nest, or plants could have overgrown the outcropping of gold, leaving no trace of the fortune beneath.

THE LEGEND ✓ FRONTIER JESUIT TREASURE

Montezuma's Head, the northern sentinel of the Ajo Range, stood watch as Indians rebelled and tore apart the San Marcelo de Sonoita mission, situated innocently in the verdant valley below. Some say that the mission was razed with a fortune in gold buried beneath it. The mission, one of the many founded during the late 1600s by the famous Jesuitpriest, Eusebio Francisco Kino, was located south of the old mining town of Ajo near the U.S.-Mexico border. No historical documents confirm the idea of gold buried beneath the mission, but the legend of the lost gold of Sonoita lives on. Some treasure-hunters believe someone hid the Jesuit gold high in the towering Tortilla Mountains in Pinal County whereit awaits discovery. The Jesuits themselves say there never was any gold. According to Tohono O'odham tradition, Anglos arrived years ago on a ship and made their camp in a grassy field, about 60 miles from the coast of the Gulf of California. The lush green Sonoita Valley (now spelled Sonoyta) and the O'odham settlement there enticed Father Kino To build a mission in the valley. His men created a large church at the site, using Tohono O'odham (then called Papago) Indians in the construction of the structure and the tilling of the surrounding land.John D. Mitchell, in his book Lost Mines and Buried Treasures Along the Old Frontier, says supplies were un-loaded from a Spanish clipper ship anchored off the Gulf of California and packed in to the site on the backs of local Tohono O'odham Indians. The Indians dug the trenches for the church's rock foundation and were employed to make the adobes that would surround the church.

The Tohono O'odham people proved eager workers and, not long after the Spaniards' arrival, the church and an adjacent residence stood tall. High walls to provide protection against marauding Apaches encompassed the buildings. An orderly little village stood farther south, fronting the church.

After the completion of the church, according to legend, men worked feverishly mining the placer gold discovered in the San Francisco Mountains, southwest of the village in Mexico. Men worked at a smelter near the church. Workers fashioned the ore into gold bars, which were stored, along with buckskin bags full of gold nuggets and dust, in a secret room beneath the mission floor.

The legend says the Indians grew weary of their work, cleaning, cooking and mining for the missionaries who were growing rich. The gold beneath the mission increased, though extracting it from the mine grew more difficult. As the years passed, the extent of the Indians' discontent magnified, and they began to plot a revolt.

According to Mitchell, church bells rang out over the valley one bright spring morning in 1750. Legend has it that a group of Indian men with brightly woven blankets flung over their shoulders walked silently to the service. The church was conspicuously empty of women and children that morning. When the church had filled, the warrior Indians drew tomahawks from under their blankets and killed the resident Father Miguel Diaz, along with two visiting priests from a mission in Santa Barbara, California. They flung the bodies into the underground room where the gold was hidden, and then leveled the church. After sacking and razing Mission San Marcelo de Sonoita, the Indians covered the entrance to the rich gold mine they had worked, known as the Santa Lucia, leaving its whereabouts a mystery to this day. This legend differs from historical accounts. But both legend and history agree that Luis, a Pima Indian from Saric, Sonora, instigated the rebellion. The travels and teachings of the missionaries had hampered Luis' prestige and lessened his authority as a shaman, instilling in him a vengeful bitterness toward the priests.

He used his position to work the Pima tribes into the rebellion in which nearly 100 Spaniards died. Missionaries perished at Caborca, located in the Mexican state of Sonora; and the missions at San Xavier del Bac, in the Santa Cruz Valley, and at Guevavi, laid out on the Santa Cruz River south of Tucson, also were plundered and temporarily abandoned.Historical records indicated that Father Enrique Ruhen was the priest assigned to Sonoita, the westernmost of the old Kino missions at the time of the rebellion. Ruhen was a missionary from Germany. An account of the priest's martyrdom is found in the 18th-century writings of Father Ignaz Pfefferkorn, a Jesuit priest famous for his book Sonora: A Description of the Province. According to Pfefferkorn, the attack at Sonoita occurred on the night of November 21, 1751.

As Father Ruhen lay in bed, arrows rained through his window, wounding him so badly that his attackers assumed him dead. As arrow wounds are seldom immediately fatal, Father Ruhen gathered his strength and crept from his hut, perhaps looking for a place to hide. He managed to reach a tree, where he knelt, struggling to hold himself upright, as his life ebbed.

At daybreak, a small group of Indians found Father Ruhen barely clinging to life, and smashed his skull with a rock. The account by Pfefferkorn failed to mention any of the lost gold, and indicated that it was six years before Ruhen's body was given a proper burial.

Some versions of the legend indicate that the Indians working with the priests valued their friendship and did not feel enslaved by the missionaries as the other version of the legend suggests. The Indians loved the priests so much they warned the clergymen of the impending revolt, helping them to hide the gold in a cave in the Tortilla Mountains before leading them to safety. Some accounts contend the gold resided in a dark, deserted cavern high within the Puerto Blanco Mountains in southwestern Pima County.

The question remains as to whether a vast treasure lies buried with the skeletons of faithful men in the ruins of an old mission, or whether the gold lies buried high in the hushed mountains that stand guardne hot day in the shimmering desert, a few miles north of the Superstition Mountains, a group of Indians stum-bled upon a mystery that remains unsolved to this day.

TWO SKELETONS of the SUPERSTITIONS

As the story goes, a group of young Pima Indians escorted some bear hunters into the Mazatzal Mountains, about 50 miles northeast of Phoenix. The time frame is unclear, according to author Thomas Penfield in the book Dig Here!

After getting the hunters settled, the Pimas headed back to their reservation. Traveling south from Mount Ord to just north of the foothills of the Superstition Mountains, they stumbled across the parched and bleached skeletons of two men.

According to Penfield, the bones lay scattered across the dry desert. A shallow mine shaft near the men, along with scat-tered tools and a small pile of gold-laced quartz, led the Indians to believe that the men were prospectors who had died before enjoying the fruits of their discovery. The Indians pocketed a few of the larger gold nuggets, perhaps to take to their tribal craftsmen.

As evening neared, they settled for the night beside an ancient water hole at the north end of the Santan Mountains. An old prospector stopped at the same water hole to fill his containers. Wandering among the Indians' camp, the prospector chatted with the friendly Pimas and noticed the rocks they brought with them. He examined one and immediately saw it was rich in gold, but tossed it aside, saying it had no value to avoid tipping off the Indians. The prospector spent the night nearby and returned early in the morning to find the Indians gone, but the pieces of ore lying where he'd thrown them. He collected the valuable rocks before backtracking the Indians' route until he came to the base of the mountains. There he lost the trail as it disappeared into the rocky country north of the Superstitions.

Frustrated after riding in circles, the prospector returned to the camp as night approached.

An assayer in Phoenix tested the gold flecks in the quartz and certified that it ran $35,000 per ton in gold. After his trip to have the rocks assayed, the prospector returned to the route between the mountains to spend the rest of his healthy days guarding his secret while searching fruitlessly for the lost gold.

When his body could no longer stand the rigorous demands, he finally revealed the story about the skeletons and the gold to others. According to John D. Mitchell, author of Lost Mines and Buried Treasures Along the Old Frontier, a legend called the "Lost Pima Indian Gold" might explain the construction of the mineshaft and the skeletons.

While U.S. soldiers were stationed at Fort McDowell, two of them traveled east of the fort across the Verde River to hunt deer. They returned that night with as much ore as they could carry. It was "white milky quartz generously flecked with free

“Gold,” according to Mitchell. The ore later sold in Phoenix for nearly $1,400. The soldiers subsequently returned to the area to collect more gold. Although they'd originally stumbled upon their find, they were unable to retrace their steps in the endless landscape without landmarks to guide them. After their release from the Army, the men returned to the area to resume theirsearch for riches, their appetite for the gold so whetted by what they'd encountered. Mitchell concluded that the men eventually found their gold, but possibly had been killed by Apaches hiding in nearby caves. Regardless of what happened, no one ever heard from the soldiers again. Maybe the bones those Pima Indians stumbled upon belonged to the soldiers. If so, theyremained eternally guarding their gold, concealing it from whoever passes by — including the old prospector himself. Many determined and optimistic fortuneseekers, foreheads wrinkled in frustration and dismay, have searched for the elusive gold. But as with most legends, the treasure has evaded even the most persistent hunters like a mystifying, glittering desert mirage.

ARMY DESERTERS' UNDETECTED TREASURE

The Baboquivari Mountains guard gold ore at the bottom of two ephemeral pools of water. Frontier soldiers twice found the gold, but weather and marauding Apaches combined to stop them and others from returning to the rich deposit. Most accounts place the gold southwest of Tucson on the Tohono O'odham Reservation near the Baboquivari Mountains. The story begins in the early 1870s when soldiers from old Fort Lowell in Tucson were ordered to pursue a band of Apaches south from Maricopa Wells on the Gila River. The Indians had massacred a family at Maricopa Wells and kidnapped a child in the process, then headed south for the Mexican border, wrote Raymond W. Voss in his book, A Reference Guide to Lost Mines and Hidden Treasures of Arizona, Old and New. The troopers found the bloodied bodies of the murdered family and set off to find the Indians. Mounted soldiers soon joined the search. The weather was hot and water was scarce, so the Army's scout watched the horses in order to detect when they smelled water. The horses led the men to a shallow arroyo at the foot of a rocky ledge where two pools of water had collected. The soldiers, exhausted by the heat, stopped to quench their thirst. As they did so, one soldier noticed rocks in the bottom of the pool that reflected the sunlight. Another soldier recognized gold in the shiny pieces of quartz, and the men hurriedly began to collect as many nuggets as they could carry. Some of the men wanted to forget the Apache renegades and to concentrate instead on collecting the gold. The captainrefused to abandon the chase and divided the gold they'd collected equally among the men before ordering them to continue the hunt.

In time, the pursuing soldiers headed off the Apaches and rescued the abducted child. Afterward, some of the men sought discharges so they could return to the canyon and mine the gold. The Army denied their requests, but according to legend, two of the soldiers deserted, stole horses and rode south toward the mountains convinced that a life of luxury and leisure awaited them.Eventually the soldiers found the ledge and the gold, but the pool of water that had quenched their thirst, and which they had been depending upon in order to return to civilization, had dried up, said Thomas Penfield in A Guide to Treasure in Arizona. Nevertheless, the men loaded the horses with the gold ore and led them out of the mountains. As they traveled, the heat and subsequent dehydration began to affect the men and the horses. Piece by piece, the gold had to be removed in hopes of lessening the burden. Ultimately, the horses collapsed.

The Army dispatched a search party to apprehend the deserters, Penfield reported, and discovered the body of one of the men, dead from dehydration. The search party soon came upon the second deserter who survived just long enough to gasp out anaccount of their harrowing experiences. Several of the soldiers who also had seen the gold made searches themselves after they were discharged. They figured the deserters had stashed some of the gold in an attempt to relieve the horses of some weight as they tired. One member of the original group that discovered the gold set out year after year, vainly attempting to locate the lost nuggets.

Some accounts place the gold north of the Quijotoa Mountains, rather than in the Baboquivari Mountains, complicating the search.

As far as anyone knows, the gold mined by troopers from pools of water remains hidden to this day.

THE ELUSIVE COWBOY MINE

Some legends speak of gold fields so thick with nuggets anyone could gather a fortune by bending over to pick them off the ground. The story of the Cowboy Mine describes people actually throwing gold away. No one comprehended the action until someone knowledgeable realized the gold was disguised. By then, the find was lost.

As the legend goes, in the early 1860s an unnamed ranch on the Colorado River north of Yuma sheltered an adobe corral at the bottom of a small hill littered with smooth black pebbles. The cowboys had no use for the pebbles other than as gentle ammunition to toss at a stubborn cow while they herded the cattle into the corral. The thought of prospecting probably never crossed the ranch hands' minds.

When Indian raids forced the closure of the ranch, one grizzled cowboy returned to the East. One version of the story says he found some pebbles that had fallen into his trunk. Another version says the cowboy had absent-mindedly put the pebbles into his pocket. On a whim, he showed them to an unidentified mining man who judged the small metallic stones composed of hematite. Upon breaking one open, the two discovered Every so often, observers in small aircraft have sighted an adobe corral, prompting a spate of renewed prospecting.

the hematite was filled with free gold. Treasure hunter John D. Mitchell said the cowboy remained in the East telling his tale while others searched for his fabled bonanza. The mysteries of what happened to the stash and the location of the abandoned ranch still baffle and taunt treasure hunters today. According to Mitchell, a cowboy arrived in Mojave, California, with a load of black hematite pebbles and spouting a story of a small, pebble-covered hill near the Colorado River.

Some people thought the cowboy got the pebbles and the tale from a dying Indian. Others thought he found them in a corral on the east side of the Colorado River. No one knows the reason for the discrepancy-and no one has yet found the Cowboy Mine.

A prospector supposedly camped one night in an old corral surrounded by black pebbles. Upon learning of his accidental find, he set out to cash in on his luck. Later, his body was found near his empty canteen in the desert.

Every so often, observers in small aircraft have sighted an adobe corral, prompting a spate of renewed prospecting even though nobody knows if the corral is the same as the one in the legend.

So far these hopeful treasure seekers have returned empty-handed and crestfallen. But those views from the air perpetuate the story and the hope that some day a lucky treasure hunter will rediscover the goldladeN hematite pebbles that cowboys of the past used to carelessly toss at their cattle. If only they had known.

MISSING MAP TO THE VALISE MINE

Oft whispers of the Lost Valise Mine echoed near Lava Butte on the Navajo Indian Reservation, telling a tale of chance and mystery for those seeking an easy road to riches. Many believed the mine had an abundance of gold-laced quartz tucked in its shafts.

But no one has discovered its location in northern Arizona since the death of its original finder, although many have tried.

In 1879, Capt. Charles Watt and Irwin Baker built a cabin in a gulch a couple of miles from Cripple Creek, Colorado. Baker happened to have a stash of gold ore with him that he said he and a Mexican mined on an Indian reservation in Arizona. He said Indians chased them off the land before they could reach the spot where they hid a cache of white quartz threaded with gold ore. They hid it under a huge shelving rock, which showed signs of having housed cliff dwellers in past years, according to Robert McReynolds, author of the book Thirty Years on the Frontier, published in 1906.

Baker vowed that he would return for it after peace had been made with the Indians. In preparation for that day, he created a map that would lead him back to the mine, as well as the treasure he and the Mexican found and concealed.

The Mexican died, Baker said, from wounds inflicted on him during the battles with the Indians, leaving Baker as the sole possessor of the knowledge of the mine's whereabouts, as well as the hiding spot of the cliff-dwelling stash. Baker told Watt the map leading to the mine rested in his own battered valise, but Baker never lived to use it. He traveled to Leadville, Colorado, the closest town to the known digging site at Lava Butte, in the fall of 1879 in pursuit of his long-lost treasure. But there he fell ill and died from pneumonia.

After Baker's death, nobody claimed his valise, so Watt did the honors, knowing the map to the lost mine was hidden among its contents. But he could not find it anywhere. As a result, he believed the map remained with its owner, lying cold and still in the ground.

Watt halted his search for the mine until 10 years later, when he found Baker's map by accident, according to McReynolds.

One day, Watt needed several strips of leather for some purpose, so he decided to use the outer leather covering of Baker's valise. But as he cut into the worn leather, a yellowed sheet of paper fell between the outside leather and the inner lining. Watt had found the map that had eluded him since the death of Baker.

Watt immediately organized a search party, which included McReynolds, who knew the area well, John Bowden, a civil engineer, and a Captain Baker (probably not related to Irwin), to seek out the mine as well as help Watt finance the trip into northern Arizona.

According to McReynolds, the key to the lost mine resided at Lava Butte in Arizona, for that was the most prominent landmark on the deceased Baker's map. The site lay in the Painted Desert region, which is about 160 miles long and starts around 30 miles north of Cameron. But the Lost Valise Mine proved not such an easy target.

The search party camped along the Little Colorado River, while McReynolds and Bowden branched out to further explore the surrounding area. Their venture eventually led them to their goal, Lava Butte, and allowed them to chart the best way to approach it.

The day finally arrived for the search party to set out toward Lava Butte withtwo days' worth of supplies and water. By early evening, Lava Butte lay in the dying light of the Arizona sun while the men set up camp.

That night, their dreams brimmed with images of rich ore hiding in the folds of Lava Butte, waiting for somebody to chance upon it. Thoughts of success enriched the men's hearts. Then something went wrong.

After the evening meal, Bowden took a solitary stroll under the stars, but never returned. The midnight hour approached, but both McReynolds and the rest of the party felt hesitant about leaving camp to look for him. McReynolds knew the area better than anyone in the group, so he felt obligated to take control of the situation. Instead of searching for Bowden and possibly getting lost in the desert, he fired his rifle at intervals throughout the night, hopDuring Bowden would recognize the signal to return to camp. But he never came back.

In the morning, McReynolds began a search for his companion. His water supply grew low, and the dry weather conditions forced him to return to the camp at the river. However, before he reached it, his horse died, and McReynolds, too, got lost along the way. Luckily, his party found him before he succumbed to dehydration.

Because of the delay, members of the party used the remaining water and provisions before they could begin to search for the Lost Valise Mine, and were forced to return to the river camp.

The group discovered Bowden's body about 5 miles from camp. Apparently, he had gotten lost and his tracks showed that he had walked in circles. They believed he had died from exposure, for his body revealed no signs of violence.

Before the search party could organize another trip into Lava Butte, Watt died from gastritis. He possessed the only map leading to the treasure of the Lost Valise Mine, but a search of his belongings did not uncover the map, so the members disbanded and returned to Flagstaff emptyhanded.

The location of the Lost Valise Mine remains a mystery today.

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