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 Rip 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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