Evening Star Newspaper, June 7, 1931, Page 74

n St. Louis a few days ahead of the date on which Goff was expected. While he was wait- ing, news of the Sierra Mojada strike, which took so many of us border Texans to Mexico, broke. The first thing that Fancho thought when he heard the news was that his own silver ledge had been discovered: Detailed maps ‘of the country to refer to did not exist. He burned to get to Mexico at once; he continued to wait for his partner. The day on which Goff was to join him came and passed; a week dragged by—and not a word of Gofl. Fanche was staying at a hotel in St. Louis, - and somehow, while he paced the lobby floor and fretted, he and one of the clerks, McNeill, became rather intimate. He told McNeill of his ungrasped fortune, of his delay, of his eagerness to be gone. Then, Goff or no Gofl, he decided to go. He told McNeill that if he would go with him he would “take care of him.” They left for Eagle Pass. At Eagle Pass Fanche learned that the Mojada strike could not be on his ledge, and while he was there Burris and Heath, fresh from the excitement, met him. They were old forty-niners; so was he. He wanted trusty aides to help him open the mine; they were out for anything. Fanche proposed that they throw in together, and when we overtook the four men they were heading for El Paso with the purpose of entering Chi- huahua at that point and going down the country. The ledge was 300 miles southeast of Paso del Norte, Well, we traveled on at a fair rate and at length reached El Paso—just a little town then. Fanche seemed to be waiting for something— I've never known what—and we camped and lay around tocwn for a week. Then one evening Fanche came into camp. “I'm being watched, boys,” he said, “I'm being watched. I've got to get out of here quickly and secretly.” He acted quickly. His proposal was that he and Burris should leave for Chihuahua City on horses that night and that we should follow them in a day or two, proceed to Ojo de Agua, located on the great ranch of Gen. Terrazas, and there await message from him. It seemed desperate to me for these two old men to set out on that 300-mile horseback trip through a desert country beset by Indians. Fanche was a heavy man, and his legs were troubling him. He was suffering severely every day, and I did nct see how he could ride at all. The Mexicans at this time were not allowed by Diaz to possess arms, and the Indians were bold and ferocious all over Northern Mexico. About midnight Fanche and Burris pulled out. In a day or two we followed. After we got to, Ojo de Agua we had a fight with the In- dians, the Terrazas forces being the chief combatants on our side. We waited on for 10 days without any message. We got restless and pulled out for Chihuahua City. Half- way there we met old man Burris, and he bad & tale to tell. - ot - 0= " THE SUNDAY E sald that he and Fanche had made from El Paso to Chihuahua all right, that he himself had gone nearly blind on trip. Then Fanche had beccme very fill, so he claimed, to ride any further. Fanche claimed that he had once been operated on and restored to health by a noted physician in San Francisco and that he was going back that city. Accordingly, he took a stage to Pacific Coast, from which he would board a steamer to San Prancisco. Before however, he said to Burris: “You have come with me so far & true man. I want you to go on nounce the mine in our names. You believe, find it alone. It will be better to start Cross it. Fourteen or fifteen miles away you will come to ancther range running parallel to the first range in a direction northwest and southeast. Cross it. Then go on and cross & third range. “After you have crossed it, ride on down the ; valley, keeping your eyes on a fourth range, which you must not crcss. After you have ridden alongside this range for a half day or so you will see that the formation and color of the mountains change. Ride on down the val- ley. Then you will see a pass into the moun- tains. The rock walls of this pass will be straight up and down—muy encajonado (boxed) as the Mexicans say. Ride into this pass or canyon. You will find great round boulders In it that it has taken millions of years to wear thus and your path through them will be difficult, but ride on. Then after a while the pass you are in will open out omnto a kind of sloping mesa. Upon the sides of that mesa are some low trees of a peculiar kind. They are reddish and are called ma- dronas. Above them is the edge.” After old man Burris had told this story and bad assured us of his belief in the sin- cerity of Fanche’s actions we turned back to Ojo de Agua. There we camped and Burris, McNeill and myself set out to follow directions. We traveled light, taking only our guns, some food in morrals, canteens of water and one blanket each. We found a range of mountains running northwest and southeast, and we crossed it. We crossed another range parallel to it, then a third range. Then we rode down & valley skirting the base of a fourth range. After we had gone a way we saw the formation and color of the mountains change. They became whiter. Then we saw a pass leading into the range. As we ap- proached it, looking in a southeast direction, we saw that it was between high bluffs of rock. After we had ridden up the canyon some distance it spread out and we came to great boulders. The canyon grew more shal- low, and after a while we came to a kind of sloping mesa. There on the mesa were some thick-set, reddish trees, the madronas. We could Hardly wait to get near them. But STAR, WASHINGTON, ¥. €, JONE 7, TO3T. = Jeft it until our arrival, had been near the Tn'lnkmnfm'elotbackfioojodem we alnibst had a quarrel, Burris, as the man who had brought the directicns from Fanche claimed a one-third share in the mine; another belonging, of course, to Fanche, thus leaving only a third to be divided among Mc- Neill, Heath, Smith and myself. This pro- posed division did not suit us ether fellows a little bit. Finally we agreed to put cff the division untii it came time % draw up the papers. The thing to do now was to go back to the ledges, get some ore specimens and denounce the claim. ‘The next day the same three of us who had made the first trip started back, fully equipped with guns, ammunition, provisions and tocls, a pack mule carrying most of the stuff. As I remember it, the ledges are nearly two days’ ride from Ojo de Agua. We crossed two of the mountain chains that we were supposed to cross and then stopped for a late ncon. We had halted along the main sink of the valley near somse sharp cuts or eanyons in the ground. We made coffee under a mesquit: bush and then all lay down in the shade to take a little siesta. I had my hat over my face so as to shut out the fierce light and had, I suppose, dozed off when all at once something roused me. I think it was the sudden ceasing of the horses to graze. A grazing horse makes a kind of musical noise cropping the grass and grinding it, and men out with their lives depending on often notice that “music” or the ab- sence of it. Anyhow, when I raised up I saw every animal with head and ears pointed to the range of mountains we had last crossed. I looked, too, and saw a thin, stringy cloud of dust. “Indians!” I yelled. We had plenty of time to prepare. We got our horses and equipment and took them into one of those sharp canyons, getting back inio a kind of pocket. Somehow I did not feel un- easy; I knew that we could protect ourselves; McNeill felt the same way. We had enough ammunition to supply a company of rangers; we had a little water in our canteens. But old man Burris was panic stricken. He was for surrendering before he got a good view of the on-coming riders. As they drew near, we saw that they were promise that he would get word to the American consul at Chihuahua City. So far as I know the consul did not help us any; Pedro’s good work did. But for Pedro our bodies would very likely have been left to bleach out in the mountzins instead of being delivered into the jail at Parral. At length we were released, penniless, stripe ped. The two men waiting for us at Ojo de Agua had, as I later learned, given us up for dead and gone back to Texas. While in prison I contracted what developed into slow fever; it was many weeks before I was strong enough to travel northward. When I got back home I bad been gone nearly a year. INCE coming out of Chihuahua I have neves heard a word concerning Fanche. Perhaps he did not live to reach San Francisco; une doubtedly he has been dead many, many years now. Heath and Burris soon passed off the scene. My dear friend, Will Smith, had & large family and became a settled man; he has been dead more than 20 years now. What has become of McNeill I do not know, but I believe that I am the only man living who has seen the silver ledge discovered by the scalp hunters. I have never been back to look at it. I often think that I will take one of my sons down there and see it again, but business of something always prevents. Some other man may have glimpsed the ledge since I laid eyes on it 50-odd years ago, but if so, more than likely he did not know that it con- tained silver. That part of Chihuahua is still wild and unsettled, much of it an irreclaime able waste. The chains of mountains stil} . parallel each other running northwest and southeast. The boxed canycn would be easy to recognize. No doubt the gnarled madrona trees still redden the mesa up the canyon, and I'd be willing to bet that a few bones, from the Apaches left by the scalp hunters, are still to be picked up. FPifty or a hundred years don’t change things much down in the Sierra The Mystery of Hector Tinkum — By 27 alter Davenport AM sorry to report, inspector, that we ain’t got any line on this Hector Tinkum, the big tennis player and banker, yet. No, sir, after running down a lot of leads I don’'t get nowhere. It is & mystery. If you ask me I would say that it is one of those things which will never be solved because this guy had everything—dough, a fine home, & couple yachts, a garage full of busses and a wife that would knock you dead, inspector. I been talking to her. Listen, she's a panic. Listen, this guy faded out the night of the big wrassling bouts in the Garden—the night Grak- koviffotz throwed Utz into the gallery. Him and his wife and two other couples were in the party at the bouts, and while I don’t know much about the other couples I find eut, inspector, that this Mrs. Tinkum is a little lady who is always trying to make her husband happy by entertaining him and keeping his mind off any troubles a guy like him might get into if it wasn't for his wife. See? For instance, that night. There was six bouts before Grakkoviffotz throwed Utz into Eighth avenue, see. This Mrs. Tinkum likes wrassling, but wasn’'t paying no attention to most of the bouts because she was thinking up an idea to amuse her husband, as usual. I been talking to her and the others in the party with the ex-- ception of Mr. Tinkum, who, as you know, ain't been seen since, to find out what she was doing. WEI.L after Grakkoviffotz throwed Utz away = and everybody was reaching for a hat and coat, which I find out is something too bad on account of who may of been sitting back of you during the evening, this Mrs, Tinkum hol- lers to her husband and the other two guests not to move. “Listen,” she says, “I been working on the perfectly wonderful names. of these wrasslers and thinking what wonderful anagrams they would make. As soon as I saw the program with all these wonderful names of these wrass- lers something told me there was a great idea i it. Suddenly it all come to me. They are the makings of some of the finest anagrams we over worked on. Sit down and we will work on them. I got plenty of pencils and paper which I always carry on account of not knowing what amusing new games you will run into when out for the evening.” Well, inspector, I find that the other two couple sald it was okay with them on account of Mrs. Tinkum buying the tickets to the wrass- ling, but this Mr. Tinkum said to wait, he would be back in & minute. And with that, inspeetor, he disappeared in the crowd, and that's that. He ain't been seen since and it is a mystery. Leaving a wife who would numb jou and a business that ain’t ever heard of hard times. This anagrams I was mentioning is a game, business, according to the doctor’s orders. No, sir, I can't see this case at all. It's a mystery. With a wife like ‘her this guy Mr. Tinkum was sitting pretty. All he had to do ts to be left alone, and she is not the kind of lady to let him alone so as he can be thinking about his troubles and his business against the doctor’s orders. ‘Well, as I say, he has this nervous breakdown, which don’t amount to much on account of her of the room is called in and it is up to him ¢§ question everybody and finally decide who did the job. Everybody he talks to tells the truth about what $hey was doing when the lights were off except the murderer, who can say anyw thing he wants, and it is-up to the detective t@ find out who is lying and put the finger on him, See? Well, by this time Mr. Tinkum is got some spunk about him and braces up. He always wants to be the guy who is murdered because the guy s knocked off he is out of the ZEFRERY