Tales of the Pioneers by W. A. Chalfant

A Lost Mine Story

This lost mine story was published in the Death Valley Chuckwalla in 1907.  We have 
never seen it in any other publication.

About eighteen years ago a prospector came to Daggett.  He was covered with dust.  
His beard was scraggly, unkept, his boots had lost the toes and heels.  Evidently 
the man had been away form civilization for months.  It was apparent that he had 
just come off the desert, for his face was bronzed to an Indian red.  Men eyed him 
suspiciously as he walked down the main street of the town, and a few made some 
effort to avoid him.  His appearance was not prepossessing even for a mining camp.

At the first saloon the man purchased a drink.  Then he invited those in the saloon 
to have a drink.  At this the barkeeper eyed him with suspicion.  The man in 
tatters caught the question.  He was not insulted, but produced a nugget from his 
torn pockets and pushed this over the bar.

"Pretty piece of rock.  Where'd you get it?"  Solemnly questioned the barkeeper 
when he had fingered the ore, touched it with his lips and permitted the gleam of 
the lamp to fall on the free gold which showed in blotches.  The man who had 
ordered the drinks gave his head a jerk in a backward direction and made a silent 
motion with his fingers to indicate the desert.

"Reckon it's good for the drinks?" he asked briefly.  The barkeeper looked at the 
rock once more, weighed it carefully in his hand and then laying it down back of 
the bar began to serve the gaping crowd that had lined up to the bar during the 
conversation.

That same day the prospector in tatters made many purchases in Daggett.  He 
secured a grubstake adequate for a dozen men for two months, purchased clothes 
for himself and for all aid with nuggets of the kind he had exhibited in the 
saloon.  Then he contracted with a teamster to take him back into the desert for 
a distance of 60 miles to bring back with him a load of ore.  On the following 
day the prospector left Daggett with his outfit of mules and provisions.  The 
teamster followed.  The man with the mules traveled faster than the teamster.  
At nightfall he was no longer in sight.  The teamster made his camp and early 
the next day proceeded in the direction in which the man had gone.  The way led 
northward toward the Avasatz mountains.  At noon he came to the camp where the 
prospector had spent the night.  He hurried the team forward but was unable to 
overtake the man.  He began to be worried.  His knowledge of the waterholes was 
meager.  Also he feared to lose his way on the desert, but he kept the trail of 
the mules as best he could.  So it happened that on the third day he came upon 
the mules which the prospector had purchased.  They had wandered alone back over 
the trail. The packs were strapped fast to the saddles.  Evidently they had run 
away from the prospector.  The teamsters tied them to his wagon and urged his 
own horses forward believing that he would soon meet the prospector in pursuit 
of the mules.  At nightfall, however, the man had not materialized.  And here 
the teamster's courage left him.  In a strange desert, alone, without sufficient 
feed for all of the animals and not knowing about the watering places, he 
determined to trail back to Daggett and form there make another attempt with aid 
to find the lost prospector.

Such a party was fitted out and thoroughly scouted the desert into which the 
teamster had been led.  They succeeded in finding the various camping places of 
the prospector, but of the man no traced was ever had.  It was finally concluded 
that he had been murdered, possibly by someone who had followed him out of 
Daggett, and that his body was buried in the sand.  Nor has anyone ever been able 
to find the deposit of the ore from where he had taken the rich nuggets with 
which he had come to Daggett.  These nuggets were dark sunburnt gold, and had 
evidently come from a dry placer.  From the description given by the teamster it 
was believed that the placer was about 60 miles from Daggett which would bring it 
into the Avawartz country.

Even the man's name was not learned during his brief stay at Daggett, and while 
this sketch forms possibly the most recent tale of lost mines, the mine itself has 
not been given a name.  In Daggett, those who still remember the visit of the 
prospector refer to the mine as the lost prospect.  The specimen nuggets brought 
in by the prospector were so rich that a wagon load of them would make the finder 
a very wealthy man, and evidently the nuggets were very plentiful and easily found 
once their location was known.

The Inyo Register 
Bishop, Inyo County, California
May 28, 1943

Transcribed by Pat Houser for Inyo County GenWeb, August 29, 2004