Show A mysterious MINE the strange experience ol 01 a party ol 01 texans who entered it st S louii louis globe democrat tex aug 16 it wai was t the he fortune ol 01 the writer a few days ia KO 0 w while hile on a train ronning running between el paso and san antonio to meet colonel V D II 11 a well known and respected citizen ot of the former place pikes when a short distance from the little town ol 01 warwick the colonel pointing to the cloudlike forms oreg of 0 the sierra santiago mountains exclaimed do you eee see thona those peaks well it was there that I 1 bad about thirty yeara years ago an adventure that equila equals anything that 11 haggard aggard ever wrote pressed to tell the story be he aid said 1 I have bad had such hard bard work in convincing those to whom I 1 have already related it that I 1 waa wits not to lay ay the leant least of 0 it the victim of a delusion I 1 rather dread the task but A ri you that every word ia is the solemn truth h I 1 will put y your our faith in me to the test it was in ISCO late in october i I 1 remember rightly that I 1 was paid s visit in my office by a man who gave hia his na name me as migael miguel R dimero mero this man 1 seem seemingly angly a mexican with a good deal de I 1 ef indian in fri him laim with alt a cautious and mysterious air having won my promise of secrecy informing me that be he had discovered in the sierra santiago mountains a silver mine it had bad been worked to some extent by the aztecs azteca but enough of the ore remained to make both of ua us millionaires a hundred times over I 1 refused to believe his story when from his life pocket ho be drew a lamp 01 of ore which even my inexperienced eyes told me was rich in silver romeros Ko meros object in telling me of his discovery was to secure in my b help e 1 p in working the mine for he be knew n e w that capital was needed to begin operations I 1 then told him that if things were as he stated them I 1 would have no difficulty whatever in forming a stock company to work it on shares but th t before I 1 made a move about it I 1 would have to view the mine tor myself to this he lie readily agreed only stipulating that I 1 should allow myself to be blindfolded when introduced into the place in order that I 1 might not act unfairly toward him and on my nay demurring to this condition I 1 quietly pocketed tha the specimen and turned to leave the room not wishing to lose a possibly good thing I 1 called him back agreeing to the blindfolding but on my side claiming tha the right to take a friend with me he ile was quite willing and the next mornings sun found the mexican manelf and an old friend who bad soldiered nith with mi in the mexican war named will K whom I 1 had chosen to accompany me 1011 on the road to the mountains W we reached them about noon and entering a gorge followed tollo fol loed ned it for several miles then striking off into a sort of cle cleft M right t through the side of one of the knobs ino were halted by our guide who announced that hat we wei a here to dismount and tie our horses after which if we would kindly allow our eyes to bo be bound he would lead as us into the mine after blindfolding us romero took us by the bands and with verbal dl di erections fons ions also conducted us along A very narrow ravine as I 1 could tell teu b by y on our echoing voiles voles then up a steep I 1 incline it cline for some minutes mi notes after which we descended at last we paused and were directed to get down on our all fours fourn this we did and crawled into a hole about tb abreo reo feet across I 1 should judge K I 1 leading I 1 going next and romero bringing up the rear we were in a small low passage which dipping sometimes suddenly often necessitated our ducking our heads and wriggling along flat to the earth but a few minutes of this sufficed to bring us into a large cavity aa as I 1 could tell by the air and sound and here we were told by romero that we might remove our bandages tearing them away we found ourselves in a cavern some 60 50 by 75 test feet in size with a lovely ceiling which barely allowed of one Pta standing erect 1 it w was a lighted by a rude lantern which romero must have brought with him and which showed ua us piles of earth pick axes of a strange and awkward make buckets of unfamiliar shape and as many as ten human figures lying about so lifelike were the men who in various attitudes of despair and horror were scattered around that but for the gra aspect oatha faces and the rigor of the limbs I 1 could have sworn they still lived azteca komero romero told me seeing me bending over one but that bey were not I 1 was convinced for several reasons in the first pac place the facial angle 1 and I rid the features fea turea told me that they hereof were of caucasian origin and in the second the buckets and pick axes were of iron iron a metal unknown to the aate artess s I 1 bad had ao no way of knowing of what complexion dexion theao these dead men had been but ut th their air dress resembled that of the ancient egyptians except for the bead dress which consisted con slated of a sort of skull cap their attitudes seemed to indicate that they bad been end denly surprised by some fatal catastrophe a which only gave them time t to realize the hopelessness of their situation the tools the piles of earth and th the m men e n together 1 with I th the floor and tb the a sides d e of the cavern were all covered with a thin duet dust colored film as bard as stone though slightly translucent what its nature was I 1 cannot tell tho the air of the cavern was angly hot indeed EO so hot that we were bathed in perspiration and soon ba be came sensible of real discomfort I 1 do not exaggerate when I 1 eay lay that the temperature was about degrees fahrenheit romero was very impatient for asto us to finish our inspection of this chamber from which led a gallery about 0 feet in width no so we did dot linger thinking to examine it mour at our leisure but pushed on down dowd the gallery the heat beat grew greater and the mexican began to gr grow 0 w worried it was not so when I 1 came last week be he said to me I 1 put out my hand and touched uh d the the walls of the pas passage they were BO so warm age that I 1 could cent not sustain the contact but I 1 could see that the indications oi of a rich vein of silver were present after following this gallery for nearly a hundred feet our progress was checked by a big rock which had evidently been sucked in or driven in by some tremendous force aed which completely closed the passage and tightly as a a cork in a bottle this romero romer 0 informed us had preventing him f from rom further ex the mine but that we could t judge of the probable rich neca of it from rom what wo we bad aar ady been seen and that he no difficulty could bo be found in removing the rock by blasting here lore be he placed his hand on the rock but recoiled with a shriek for the skin akin had bad boon been blistered in an instant and while wo ire stood non plumed we became aware that ft a certain dull faint roar we had fc rc arcely perceived before was growing into a rumbling that pro promised mined to deafen us and accompanied as it u wan as by a fierce hissing and end boiling was wits horribly suggestive of a lake of liquid metal bubbling tip from seats unimaginable region I 1 suppose there was no re real al danger of it but it fremed to me that the boiling flood was coming through the rock and it was certainly rising tor for the noke noise grew 5 0 W IOU louder der every moment while the heat I 1 increased e every 1 perceptibly recep bibly mil will I 1 K bore tried to I call 11 on an me bu but sank down 1 in a he heap faint fainting in and it was with great difficulty komero and I 1 got him hi in back to the antechamber I 1 felt myself also becoming faint and dizzy from rom the beat and was just able to request the mexican to take ua us back to the he a surface of the earth when my limbs failed me I 1 have a baiot remembrance of being dragg dragged ged and pushed for some come distance 1 but t when be I 1 at last recovered myself I 1 found that K and ad I 1 were lying close to where our horses were 0 I 1 tied I 1 6 d with komero romero bathing our heads with water he ile must with incredible difficulty dim have brought in tm through that underground passage and to the place where where we found ourselves when we ree recovered vered be he took us to his house hous a cabin near the foot of the mountains where be he had bad lived he told w for a number of years with his wife and five children he ile did not give any reason for his exile but I 1 suspected that he bad gotten into trouble with the authorities in mexico and bad had fled across the border Ilaw he was asaman a man cf cl come some education and more than ordinary intelligence and accidentally discovering an entrance into the cavern bad had taken it for one of the lost jos t mines of the atteck that it was a mine mine was beyond doubt but as I 1 said it bad had not been worked by the ancient mexicans but by a race which must have antedated them the narrow passage found fol and by komero romero was a natural excavation and not of course the regular entrance ce to the mine and was probably unk unknown to the minera miners komero romero declared that when be he bad explored ibe the cavern the week before the great heat we had nad found was not there so it was evident that the boiling flood we had found bubbling babbling up was only an intermix intermittent occurrence the rock which had kept it from invading the ilia antechamber had probably been sucked into place by the tle receding of I 1 the b a steaming tide perhaps on the occasion when the men met we had seen had been killed but as to that and the cause of their strange preservation of course I 1 only surmise we offered to buy the utensils and hamen remains in the cavern which would have been of inestimable value as curiosities but tried to convince romero that it would be impossible to aock the mine he ile would not however admit the impracticability of the thing and when we refused to bo be argued or pers persuaded tided I 1 into no any say attempt to meddle with an aribert undertaking king nature tr had centuries before or beet e t h her er veto to 0 on he became angry and declined to sell ua us the curiosities we wanted we left him d declaring laring he be would yet remove the difficulties difficulties that blocked bis his way to the enorma enormous us wealth the mine contained after our to town I 1 did not see K for some days but when I 1 did we mutually confessed that ne a were haunted by the thought of that silver mine to euch such an extent that we could not ret rest though both bad thought himself resigned to its on le learning a aning of the impossibility ty of gett getting ing a hand on its treasures we agreed to go around and an d look up u I 1 romero and see if we w 0 could not search the regular enhance mine our idea being that an exploration from that point might bo be feasible we found from from romeros It omeros wife that be he bad gone to el pitco the day after our visit and brought home a large quantity of gunpowder but had carried it on to some place in the mountains the woman evidently knew know nothing of her bus husbands discovery and peeked worried over his tits absence K and I 1 spent nearly a week searching for romeros hole and the main entrance but we found neither and it la Is my opinion that the former must have been closed by tha the people who w ho had mined it or by some convulsion of nature we went times and again to pee if romero had bad returned home bome but he never turned op up so it is probable that he lost his life in a desperate attempt to blast away the great rock or was overtaken by the heat beat and died there for years K and aas long as he lie lived used to go and look for the hole we had crept into blindfolded but needless to say we never found it yes I 1 told you I 1 would tax your credulity but all the same every word have spoken ia the exact truth of |