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32 / Desert Magazine / February, 1967
Warming up & drying out. We had
camped in a prospector's 'gopher hole'
just north of Granite Wells one bitter
cold rainy winter night. Dad is on the left.
back for it later. With a stick and bare
hands, he buried the big poke and the
four sacks of highgrade in the nearest
soft, high ground where it would be safe
from wind and water. According to the
waybill, it was on the easy slope of the
nose of a little smooth ridge a short distance
from the road and about seven miles
south of Indian Spring. It was not deep,
but covered with just enough dirt to hide
it. With some head-sized rocks nearby,
he made a marker cross on the ground by
placing a dozen or so side-by-side. To distract
a chance passerby, he threw his pack
saddle and blanket into a gully in the
opposite direction from the dead burro
p.nd carrying only the small poke and a
canteen, he headed for Barstow.
He made the railroad all right, but at
a price.
By the time the train arrived in Los
Angeles, he was delirious. When he recovered,
his hospital nurse put an ad in
a Los Angeles newspaper to try to find
the only person he knew, and trusted, in
the Southland. My friend Mike indentified
this man only as "Whitey" and was
close-mouthed about how he came by the
tracing of Whitey's map. He did reveal
that Whitey was a produce packer foreman
constantly on the move, as he followed
the crops. After the nurse ran the
ad, a friend notified Whitey and he went
to see the prospector who proved to be
an old buddy of Whitey's father. Someone
had cashed the poke of gold the old
man arrived with and had banked the
money (just over $2300) for him, so he
Search is circled.
gave a blank check to Whitey, drew a
map, and asked him to buy a new car, go
recover the cache—and keep the car for
his trouble.
By then it was the height of the packing
season, the desert was hot, and
Whitey already had a new car. So he tore
up the check, gave the map back to the
prospector, and told him as soon as the
desert cooled and work slacked off, he'd
take him back to get his gold and ore—
and the only charge would be gas.
The next thing Whitey heard about it
was from the hospital. The prospector
had died and named Whitey his heir.
After Whitey paid the bills, there was
less than $100 left, but the map was with
the old man's things.
Whitey's search proved fruitless and in
/ tried all kinds of combinations. This is
seventeen miles south of Indian Spring.