r of
this mine is either dead, without having revealed its exact location, or
it is known only to the Indians, who are compelled to secrecy by awful
oaths, or fear of death from their chief or members of their band. At
any rate, there is always a profound mystery connected with the hidden
treasure, that envelops it with a tinge of romance and a spice of danger
to those who seek to break the spell and lift the veil. There is also
just enough known about it, which has leaked out through some obscure
channel, to lend some slight probability to the story, and many have
been the attempts to discover the bonanza by credulous and adventurous
miners, but ever without success.

When I was living in Nevada, in 1864, I became closely associated with
an old Mormon by the name of Rose. He had been a settler in the Washoe
valley long before the discovery of the rich silver mines at Virginia
City, known as the Comstock lode, and necessarily at a time when no one
inhabited the country but Mormons and Indians. The principal tribe of
Indians were the Piutes, whose head chief was Win-ne-muc-ca. These
Indians inhabited the country around Pyramid lake, about a hundred miles
to the northeast of Carson City, where I resided. Rose was known to have
been an intimate friend of Win-ne-muc-ca in times past, and to have
performed some important service for him, which had placed the chief
under lasting obligations to him, and rumor said that in compensation he
had disclosed to Rose the whereabouts of the most valuable gold mine on
all the Pacific Coast, and that Rose was the only white man who knew
anything about it. The truth of these rumors was fortified by the
existence of three old and abandoned arrastras and a twenty-five foot
overshot waterwheel, which had evidently been erected to drive the
arrastras, that stood on one of the back streets of Carson City, and
were known to have been constructed by Rose, and as there was no stream
in the neighborhood to propel the arrastras, it was generally believed
that, when Rose built these works, he had a mine, the ore of which was
so rich that he could bring it on pack animals, crush it with these
machines, and divert a stream to propel them. As quite a large sum had
been expended on these works, it was evident that they were intended to
carry out some such purpose, which had been interrupted for sufficient
reasons. At any rate, I caught the mine fever, and after many
conferences with Rose, I and my assoc