Show the prospector arid and his burro butirro the appearance and formation of this isolated section said the prospector to his burro reminds me very forcibly of the description crip tion handed down from generation to generation regarding the discovery of the belle mckeever bonanza in the wilds of arizona a wonderful gold proposition which was lost as soon as it was found and which has never since been rediscovered discovered re dousay you say that this does not seem strange to you as you cannot tell one canyon from another and this has been the great difficulty encountered when a rich mine has been discovered in isolated regions for this whole country looks alike to the average prospector and mining man who fail to sufficiently mark the route to the new find and its location still there are many localities which resemble each other and this is why I 1 am of the opinion that this region is as q counterpart of the spot where the belle mckeever was found 1 I see that you are interested in my reference to belle mckeever and want to know why a womans comans name is prominently associated with the history of a mining venture well as we are now nicely camped by this beautiful little ettle spring and have enjoyed our evening meal I 1 will give you some of the incidents of the story way back in the year 1869 belle mckeever a member of a party of emigrants was captured by hostile apaches north of gila united states soldiers were soon on their trail stopping in their pursuit to rest and refresh themselves at a small pool they scooped out the soft earth so as to form a basin in order to increase the water supply when the water cleared they were surprised to find in the bottom of the shallow hole numerous nu nuggets gigets of pure gold wild with excitement and forgetting the object of their quest they dug desperately in the soft ground until they had accumulated at least ten pounds of nuggets nugget sp the gold having a value of 18 an ounce TI alie ie soldiers also found the ledge the source of the nuggets nug gets and from this fifty pounds of quartz was taken which contained 1800 in gold history does not state whether 0 or r not they found and rescued belle mckeever but it is a known fact that the great discovery was lost almost as soon as it was found as after leaving it the soldiers were never able again to find its exact location although they searched for it for months and more others who heard the story and who scoured the desert for days and weeks were always bitterly d disappointed sap pointed in their search and the belle mckeever today is one of the myths of the sands rocks canyons and gulches of this strange region where every mountain almost is a counterpart of the other where the sameness is distracting tr and where directions are bewildering and yet many prospectors are in the field today looking for the lost belle mckeever the lost the lost mine in the eagle tail mountains the old madden mine and other famous discoveries the accounts of which now seem almost like fables in this day and age you ask if I 1 ever found any of these old bonanzas for you seem to be of the opinion that I 1 could root them out if anyone can but none whatever I 1 have found some great properties in my time but the has escaped me and the mckeever has skipped and hopped around eluding my pursuit until I 1 am inclined to believe that this myth mythical cal proposition must be of near kin to a burro in the matter of successful hiding when being d diligently ili gently sought for but continued the prospector 1 I have made similar finds in my time my greatest success in this line being when I 1 was following the directions outlined in an ancient chart I 1 found in the ruins of an old mexican village the instructions were very indefinite but the cardinal points were well marked so that I 1 had some idea of the location of the region in which the supposed mine existed two months after I 1 had started out I 1 found myself in a section which was full of breaks lava overflow over flow and indications of volcanic eruptions but little water was to be found and I 1 was careful not to get too far away from the source of my limited supply one day whilo while carefully prospecting I 1 discovered the dim outlines of an old trail this I 1 followed up the mountain until it ended abruptly at the base of a steep cliff A little water trickled from beneath a heavy growth of underbrush and sunk in the jhb sand but no sign of ore was in evidence and I 1 was about to return to camp when I 1 found a piece of quartz in which tree free gold was showing this excited me to some extent and I 1 began to thresh around in the bushes looking for more of the same rock after some exertion I 1 worked my way close up to the cliff and here I 1 found an opening which I 1 knew had not been made by natural causes feeling my way into the hole I 1 soon found that it had been driven by the hand of man on a quartz fissure that was about eighteen inches wide I 1 followed this into the face of the cliff for a distance of about fifty feet at this point the vein widened and here also an upraise had been made on the ore body working my way up through this I 1 finally reached the surface and at a point that was almost wholly inaccessible from any direction and here in a oart of a depression I 1 found the old camp of the former owners of the mine A stone cabin had been erected that had crumbled almost to the ground through the action of the weather A small s spring pring I 1 was nearby and it was from this that the water had found its way to the tunnel and out through the bushes below the cliff close to the spring aprin I 1 found a boulder of dolomite lime which had been hollowed out c so as to serve for a mortar and leaning against it there was a small stamp of say twenty five pounds the stem of which was considerably rusted scattered around were small piles of weather stained quartz which when broken was fairly lousy with the yellow metal but all of my discoveries indicated a period of at least seventy five or a hundred years before and yet I 1 was satisfied that th s was the old mine indicated in the ancient chart I 1 had in my pocket returning to the tunnel level I 1 made a closer examination of the mine workings and satisfied myself that the property was well worth locating and recording I 1 made several filings and then worked my way back to civilization but you may be sure that I 1 was careful about my landmarks and direction so that I 1 would have no diffin difficulty alty in finding my way back after reaching denver I 1 had no difficulty in interesting my friends in my discovery and in due time work was in progress in mine development and equipment A small mill was eventually installed to be succeeded by a larger plant a few years later on and today the owners of which I 1 am one are taking down a nice bunch of the long green yearly from this old lost mine 1 I want to tell you old long ears concluded the prospector you may be a little skeptical regarding rumors of lost mines and bonanzas some of them of course may be but figments pigments fig ments of imagination but they do exist and eventually will be found again whether after thorough and intelligent search or by accident they never abscond like a bank cashier or a fool burro but await the fortunate man who may stumble onto them some day and there you are and then some |