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Show Tha Gclhatry of Western Prospectors. Idaho miners and prospectors should see to it that Miss Margaret Rice of Galveston, Tex., obtains a paying claim in Thunder mountain. This courageous cour-ageous woman, the firstTof her sex to enter the gold fields, made the trip when the snow was twenty-five feet deep in places. Miss Rice's father lost his property prop-erty in the Galveston flood. Afterward the family went through the Beaumont oil excitement. To help him along Miss Rice established the Beaumont Oil Eeview. She continued to be proprietor and editor edi-tor of this little sheet until she and her father started on the long and dangerous trip into the wilds of Idaho. Besides Miss Rice and her father, the party consisted of nine men, fifteen horses, two wagons and an immense amount of provisions, bedding and ammunition. Miss Rice wore knickerbockers" knicker-bockers" made by a man tailor, and rode astride her horse, as most women in Idaho do. The first four days of the journey were well enough but on the fifth day hardship and trial began on account of the deep snows. Her party lost two horses, a party behind theiq three horses, while She herself came near being killed by a horse falling on her. While they were waiting to ford a river, mountain fever attacked the little colony and three of the party died. "The first gold pan of. dirt I 'panned," said Miss Eice,"left a string of color six Inches long, with a"quantity of, white metal which prospectors thought to be either silver or white iron, but was proved by experts to be platinum. I was in the district dis-trict five months and expect to return soon." The West is proud of such women as Miss Rice, It may seem to Easterners that a lone woman runs great risk in braving the dangers of such a hazardous trip in the company or male prospectors only, but Miss Rice was safer from insult when escorted by these sturdy Westerners than she would have been while walking the masher-lined streets of any big Eastern city. The Western prospector is the genuine genu-ine gallant for he is one of nature's products, ihe diamond in the rough. And it is a certainty that these gold-seekers will arrange things so that this brave Texas girl will come out of Thunder mountain a rich woman some day. She deserves success. |