CHAPTER XXV 

 LOST MAN'S PARK 



NEAR this camp on Diamond Creek lay the famous 

 Lost Man's Park, a little open, tree girdled hollow, 

 wherein, marked by a surmounting pile of stones and 

 a rude wooden cross, rest the bones of the wanderer 

 from whose misfortune the spot derives its name. 



The dead man's story is unknown as would, in- 

 deed, but for an accident, have been the fact of his 

 death. Some years ago two cowpunchers on the 

 trail of a maverick literally stumbled over the bleach- 

 ing skeleton of this unfortunate. He appeared to 

 have been seated, leaning against a great fir tree, 

 when the end came. No clue was found to his iden- 

 tity, nothing to indicate the manner of his death. 

 Only an old gun, a Eip Van Winkle relic that fell 

 to pieces when touched, and a hunting knife, bone 

 handled, lay on the ground nearby. That was all. 



But in spite of or perhaps because of this pau- 

 city of material, legends sprang up about the Lost 

 Man, as legends will, and grew and were repeated 

 with constantly accumulating details until they came, 

 in one form or another, to be believed by every one. 



Perhaps the most popular version recited how the 

 stranger, coming from afar, some said in search of 

 gold, others of an enemy whom he had sworn to 



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