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Show fGOLDENl PHANTOMS ; o ; fascinating by Tales Of fdilt L. Watson ' Lost Mines " THE HILL OF SILVER A FEW years more than a century cen-tury ago, a company of eleven men set out from San Antonio Texas, to search for a wonderful silver mine. This mine was supposed sup-posed to be near the old fort of San Luis de las Amarlllas, on the San Saba river. It was known to k-end as the Hi" of Silver. It or something like It had been "found" many times before The Indians knew about It, and rumors ru-mors of Its wonders had reached the Spaniards of Mexico as early ns the Eighteenth century. The Apaches Indicated its direction; the Lipans brought silver from its veins to San Antonio; the Comanches knew its location, and the Chad-dos, Chad-dos, Wacos, and Tehuacanas, who survive only by their names on maps of the South, fought off the white men who traveled near it Don Fernando de Miranda, lieutenant lieuten-ant general of the province of Texas, found a mine which he claimed was of vast extent, and from which he brought samples of ore, and reported that he had been told of even richer mines farther on. The little group of eleven men from San Antonio were not hunting hunt-ing blindly. Their leaders wereJames and Rezln Bowie, who were supposed sup-posed to have seen with their own eyes the fabulous wealth of this hidden mine to which they were going. go-ing. James Bowie, who was to become be-come one of the martyred heroes of the Alamo, was said to have joined the tribe of Lipans who guarded the mine, for the express purpose of learning its location. Having succeeded, he organized the company com-pany to go back, fight off the Indians, In-dians, and secure as much as they could of the rich ore. The old fort was only 150 miles from San Antonio; both Bowies had been at the mine. Putting these facts together, one might suppose that the travelers would head straight for the source of the treasure. treas-ure. But for some obscure reason, they wandered about for three weeks, following James Bowie, who was "looking over the lay of the land," and finally wound up about six miles east of the fort where they were attacked by a large band of hostile Indians. . A day or so before, be-fore, a friendly Comanche had warned them of the projected raid, so they were prepared to fight, but one man was killed and three were wounded, and there was no means of caring for the Injured. So, as soon as they could move them they took their casualties back to San Antonio, making the trip, though crippled and halting, In ten days. Perhaps reasoning that If he had gone straight on tu his objective the expedition would have met success, suc-cess, James Bowie organized another an-other party, of thirty men this time, and started out again for the sliver treasure. This time he led them to the right location, but legend disagrees dis-agrees as to whether he found the mine or not That there actually is a Hill of Silver in that region Is substantiated substan-tiated by records in the archives of Mexico. According to these records, rec-ords, the mine was worked In the early days of the San Saba mission. mis-sion. When the local Indians uprose up-rose and killed everyone at the mine, It was considered politic to abandon, the place for a while, until it should be safe to return and continue operations. But during dur-ing the years after this massacre, so many things of great importance occurred to the Spaniards, and so many of those who knew the location loca-tion of the mine were killed or returned re-turned to Mexico, that the Hill of Silver became actually lost. Several years agosilver bullets were found In the bottom of San Saba springs, and this find served to bring the lost site to notice again. It is said that treasure-seekers are now hunting over an area of more than 2,500 square miles, hoping to find the wonderful silver hill Other lost and hidden treasures of Texas Include the famous "Nig. gerhead," In the wild country along the Rio Grande border. There is not much of a story to go on In the search for this mine, but It Is said that a negro who worked for a ranch below Sanderson found the ore and brought specimens of It In o camp. He disappeared shortly afterward, and ever since then the hunt has been keen, but with no results. Then there Is that deep spring one hundred miles south-west south-west of San Antonio, where "seven ackloads of silver" were throw" n early days when bandits at-acked at-acked the transporting party. Not g ago drouth caused the water to become much lower than ever tcfore. and a bucket which scraped the bottom of the spring bro?, up a Spanish silver coin dated if." After every violent storm nlon-the nlon-the of Texas, Spanish d the gulf-only few nt t, course, but stll, enough to r 0, of Joan LafittcCwho ls 8 l" Pscd to have hnrlo.i 1,1 P" some of these .Cll 8 WCallh " |