Show TRADTIN OF F TREASURfS WHITE MENHAVE HUNTED FRT FR-T nr VAIN Cave Piled Pull of Gems and Nuggets Nug-gets Which Belonged i to A Indian dian Chief I I could find an entrance to a cave which the old residents believe lies under un-der the mountain somewhere between the head and foot of Shohola Glen said a man from that interesting corner of tike county Pennsylvania I wouldnt ask to be a Gould or a Van derbllt for according to the tradition that cave is a storehouse of untold I riches We have from time to time found many promising openings in the rocky ledges that tower above the I creek on both sides of the glen of a mile or more but somehow none of them taDs that cave The Helm family fam-ily the founder of which was the first white man to come into that region has charge of the tradition The stor is that the familys pioneer ancestor had occasion to do at kindness to an Indian In-dian chief and was rewarded by being blindfolded and led to the ntrance of the cave and Into i When he was well within the cave the bandage was removed re-moved from his eyes and the Indians flashing a pine Itnot torch on the walls led Helm through almost endless galleries gal-leries and chambers stored In heaps in all of which were glittering chunks of gold and silver and other things the nature of which he did not know After Af-ter permitting him to feast his eyes on all this hidden treasure the Indian blindfolded Helm again and led him out of the cave out not by the way they had come in Helm blindfolded as he was knew by the sound of the waters that he had entered from the wild Shohola ravine When the bandage was taken from his eyes after leaving the cave he saw that they were in the val a mile north of the Shohola in fact in what is now Panther Br ok Glen showing that the main gallery of the cavern ran clear through the mountain Helm tried to find the entrance or exit to that cave for years on the sneak but couldnt and he even married a squaw of the tribe thinking that she might give him the tip but she was afraid to do so until she was on her deathbed Then she started in to tell him how to find the treasure trove but he had grown a little hard of hearing by that time and in her efforts o make him hear she male I had exhausted herself and died before she could give him the proper steer This wafe a great disappointment to Helm and his descendants to this day declare that If the cave Is ever found they will put in a claim for 3 share of its contents on the fround that their ancestor saw it first There are endless stories handed down by early white settlers of how the Indians of that part of the Delaware Dela-ware valley used bullets and arrowheads arrow-heads made of silver in their battles with the whites and their raids on the wih settlements There used to be a great many of these sIlver Bullets and arrowheads arrow-heads in old famines preserved as relics of those stirring days There are many descendants of the settlers still lving who are old enough to remember I re-member having seen plenty of them but the relics seem to have got away somehow as there is none of thtm left The silver came from the Shohola Glen cave The hoard was never all used up I it had been descendants of the aboriginal custodians wouldnt to this day be coming among us from Canada every once in a while and acting so mysteriously that we got on tQ them long ago They came to find the entrance en-trance to that cave thats what they do But we keeping eye on em A well marked Indiari6iih may be seen to this day leading l through the woods parallel with the D lamare river and crossing the Shohola creek at the entrance en-trance to the glen within a quarter of a mile of the Erie railroad Now what keeps that old path open The inhabitants inhab-itants around there have no use for i Hunters and fishers Some folks pretend pre-tend to think so But that isnt it at al Its Indians that keep that old path from growing over descendants of the original peQple treading it secretly se-cretly and stealthily What for Searching for that treasure cave The instructions that their forefathers handed down as tothe location of that cave and how to find it have slipped a cog somehow and theyve lost the clew So these nresent day Indians are sliding down there every little while following the old Indian path and keeping it open Some folks up there poohpooh and say Fudge but why doesnt that old path disappear then And what did the Indian say the time he stopped at Valentine Hlpsmans tavern and ordered or-dered nine hard boiled eggs ate them and said he wanted to get train No6 going east Why he said that an ancestor an-cestor of his was In the battle of Min I isink under Brant the famoua Indian chief That battle was fought in 1779 I three miles up the Delaware from Sho hola on the York state side Although I the Indians were successful in the battle bat-tle this ancestor of the reminiscent In I diansaw that the days of the red man 11n I the valley were numbered He was I t i one of a few who knew of the existence of a cave in the Shohola ravine this Indian said and after the battle he followed I i i fol-lowed the old Indian trail to the hoI ho-I hola entered the cave at that side i I walled the entrance up from within i then passed through Panther Brook i came out of the cave at that side and t walled up the entrance there This was to destroy all probability of the white I settlers stumbling upon the cave and securing the treasure it contained This thoughtful warrior subsequently went I to Canada where all the Indians went when they were driven from the region I re-gion He died shortly afterward and I left only meager directions to his fam I I ily as to the finding of the hidden caves so meager said the Indian who ate the nine hard boiled eggs at Hipsmans that none of them had any hope of ever finding i Thats what the Indian said But did he leave on train No 6 that day No sir he didnt And he has never been seen since Some folks say that he found the cave got into i got lost there couldnt find his way out again and died I dont know about that but he was only trying to throw us off by what he said and wasnt there for any other purpose than tp hunt for that cave Thats what And its Indians In-dians like him that are keeping that old Indian path open and what we want to do up In that corner of Pike county is to watch out A fellow from New York came near throwing us all into I fits last summer by advancing a the qry he had about that Indian path being be-ing so fresh Its because Indians are using it on the sly he said But theyrenot looking look-ing for that cave Theyre not looking for that cave because theyve found it Theyve found the cave and theyre keeping that path fresh now by carrying car-rying out the treasure theyve found in the cave and lugging it away We had never thought of the possibility possi-bility of such a thing and I tell you wewere worked up to the top notch for a while Then I took a look at the old path and found that the New York mans theory couldnt be true and told Qur folks sort so-rt Theres nothing In it I said There aint any tracks in the path I them Indians were lugging the silver and things out of that cave the backloads theyd carry would sink their feet into the path up to their ankles So that settled that alarming theory the-ory and all weve got to do is to watch Theyre looking for that cave all right aria we want to be there when its ni foundNew York Sun |