BOREGO SPRINGS TO LOS COYOTES 209 



always the hints have been of "buttes" and the 

 mysterious "black formation." These accessory de- 

 tails have not only kept alive the belief in the mine, 

 but have extended the field of believers until the 

 Peg-Leg Mine is a household word in California. 

 From first to last (though the last is yet unreached) 

 the number of those who have gone out on this 

 adventure must run to hundreds, and the tale of 

 those who have never returned is tragically long. 

 Hardly a year passes without two or three parties 

 taking up the search, following some new theory or 

 clue. My predecessors at this old cabin were among 

 the latest additions to the list. I may say here that 

 a month or two later I chanced to meet a man who 

 had recently seen them, safe and sound, but of 

 course unsuccessful, well on their homeward way. 



As for me, though I am not of the breed that Peg- 

 Leggers come of, and long ago resolved, following a 

 well-known example, to die a poor man, yet I feel 

 the fascination of the gold-hunter's game, and have 

 sometimes, over my camp-fire, played with the idea 

 of sudden freedom from impecuniary cares by stum- 

 bling on a mine. Here at Borego Springs I overlooked 

 the very ground where, if an3Avhere, Peg-Leg Smith's 

 bonanza is awaiting an owner. From all evidences 

 it could not be a day's march away — a little hill, 

 such as I walk up any day for the view, but — be- 

 hold ! littered with nuggets that one could pick out, 

 like walnuts, with a pocket-knife! It was an exciting 

 idea, and I almost resolved to make a practice of 

 climbing all little hills hereafter. But there came a 

 soberer thought — of the poor wretches who had 



