Show GOLDEN PHANTOMS fascinating taw of ynh L watson lost mines anu ainu IN GOLD 1849 what a date for history it wasl was I 1 especially for or the west 49 west or of the mississippi was a year that marked the real beginning of things people coming and going high hopes ebbing and flowing fortunes made and lost gold wasted thrown away and stolen murder der robbery that was what 40 meant to the west there are stories enough to 11 fill 11 a library about the gold of 49 alone people went w ent mad over 0 er it the golden phantom was at its most alluring and men followed it crazily craz lly unswervingly determined to gain its promised riches if they had to 1111 those who got in their way the west wag overrun with bandits who hungered and thirsted for or gold that year in sacramento calif there was a band of eight men who planned to enrich themselves at the cost of others they went about in rather haphazard fashion however goldlust golddust gold dust may be packed in sacks gold bars are heavy but precious but gold money inks clinks el and slides and takes up extra space and it was gold money that the thieving stole one hundred thousand in gold coin cime came into their greedy hands divided by eight this would leave each with a small fortune as computed in those days and then there w was as always the possibility that so something m e might happen to remove ene or more of the number the guilty eight headed east with their spot spoil across the out toward the plains they hurried six of them fell along the way killed by soldiers who hall had tracked them the surviving pair hurried ahead anxious desperate but they could not escape with their burden of gold it must be hidden somewhere in safety marked so that they would not lose the to location and left it would walt ot for them to come hack back to it so the two has haltli efly inscribing a false date on three stones burled the gold in a gulch marked tile the spot by the date and vanished into the east more than thirty years ears later a man stopped at a sheep camp near the present town ton of clifford in eastern colorado lie ile was w as lie he told the herder seeking for the treasure which ho he had burled bulled in 49 for weeks he stayed staged in the neighborhood searching for that fortune in coins searching in vain aln at last he went back east defeated but before he loft left lie told the of the three dated rocks locks with their false inscriptions 1847 somewhere these bliefe three rocks still lay and within their triangle a faint golden phantom antom hovered guarding the stolen heard hidden so long ago james will the owner of the sheep would have been more than human if he had not succumbed to the lure of that phantom antom others to whom he confided the story hunted hu ted also but no such dated rocks could be found at last only a few years ago a man named elkins discovered one of the stones ills his find scores of persons to lock flock to the place digging where it lt seemed likely the treasure had bad been hidden but nothing came to light except roots and rocks disinterred eagerly thrown down angrily by disappointed treasure hunters then late in november 1934 a second st stone one was found T 0 diat hatton of clifford discovered it a flat rock hearing bearing the inscription D grover anil and joseph fox fos laws lawe aug 8 WS 1848 and the hunt was on again it may be presumed that grover and lawo lawe were the fugitives who burled the gold although why they should thus perpetuate their guilty names Is not clear so far no one lius has succeeded in finding the treasure will the third stone be disc discovered e vered some day in the f future u ture lat and u will will another another generation of eager gold seekers dig over the ground perhaps and yet it may have happened also that the man who came back in 1 n the SOs to search tor for the cache che found it and did not tell cae he may have moved it come back later and taken it away or even and this Is possible found that his surviving partner in prime had already been on the scene it Is possible too that the stranger might have been spoof ing the sheepherder he might have been looking for something entirely different from hidden stolen gold and he could easily have inscribed that particular date on the rocks at that time why well why do men enjoy playing practical jokes still no one could convince the people of clifford that his story etory vas other than the purest truth troth the golden phantom li Is one ghostly figure that Is delightfully easy to believe in and maybe it Is all tri true maybe some one will dig up that pleasant sum of one hundred thousand dollars in gold colt cola rome ome day who kiowa |