Ghosts Guard the Lost
Mine 'of Pish-La-Ki
AN OUT-OF-THE-INDUSTRY FEATURE BY
JAY CHARLES
Countless are the many Legends concern ing Lost Mines of the Great
Southwest. Here is probably the most fabulous related by a man who
has spent years and years in quest of Lost Mines th roughout the
W estern States.
The lure of lost mines ha led count-
less men to their death; to years of soli-
tude and privation. It will always be so
for there are many mines of fabulous rich-
ness that have been found, only to again
be lost in that vast territory of the South·
west where strange things still happen.
Now you may wonder how a mine can be
"lost." It is a simple thing. In the first
place the original discoverer of the mine
usually has worked alone. You have seen
them if you have travelled any through
Arizona, New Mexico, California, Utah, and
other states. Lonely men, these Desert
Rats. Men living for months at a time
with the desert for their bed and the stars
for their covering. Men whose eyes are
deep·set in wrinkles, caused by peering
ceaselessly into the sun·baked soil in search
of the telltale sign that will bring them
fortune. Men who grow a bit "queer" due
to the loneliness.
I remember one I met once in the Pintos.
I'd pitched my camp near Cottonwood
Springs preparatory to stocking up with
water in the morning before attempting
the Pinto Basin crossi'ng. Over the ridge
he drifted, riding one burro and leading
three others. He was heavily outfitted and
evidently starting off on a trip back deep
into the mysterious mountains, said to be
rich in ore.
He pitched his camp nearby, nodded a
brief acknowledgment of my salutation,
built a fire, cooked a frugal meal and then
turned his stock out. Then he sat by the
fire and smoked. My curiosity getting the
better of me I called across the intervening
space.
"Moving on tomorrow, Pardner?"
" 0," he shouted back, ''I'm stayin' right
here a spell," and silence again reigned.
After a while he walked over to me and
we chatted of this and that. Finally, in
all seriousness, he informed me, "I'm
leavin' afore daybreak, Pardner, but I told
you I wasn't because if them fool burros
heard me say I was goin' on they'd scatter
and I'd have a helluva time catch in' 'em in
the mornin'."
He actually believed those burros under-
stood every word he said and would wander
away from camp if they knew he was mov·
ing! Which is what I mean by some of
the Desert Rats acting " queer."
But to get on with lost mines. A pros·
pector finds a rich "strike." He is alone
and he loads up with all the ore he can
manage, carefully covers his find over so
that any other passing prospector will miss
it, and sets off for town. He fully intends
to file his claim at the Recorder's office and
return to work it. He hits town generally
coming in from an opposite direction to
where the mine really is, for he knows that
once the word gets around that he has
"struck it rich," every effort will be made
to follow him back to his strike.
He cashes in and starts buying supplies
for the work ahead. He is completely
silent anent his discovery, and is well sat-
isfied with the progress being made, when
he decides such luck should be celebrated
and (generally) proceeds to get all "tanked
up," rolled for his wad, and perhaps
knocked off.
He dies and the secret he has so care·
fully guarded die with him. That is rea·
son number one for many lost mines.
Others include the discoverer, coming out
of his binge and trying to throw off those
following him, actually being unable to
relocate the mine. It has happened to my
knowledge.
Now all of this may not make sen e to
the reader ensconsed in a comfortable chair
in a nice home in the city. Try living
on bacon and beans for months with your
only company a long-eared, loud·voiced
burro; try putting up with unbelievable
hardships for week after week; with going
short on drinking water, your grub running
out and being forced to eat Chuckwalla
lizard and rattlesnakes (they're not too
bad) and then hitting the jackpot. Go to
town and tell me you won't celebrate.
Again some mines are 10 t because the
finder is trailed pretty close to the diggin's
and then killed by those who think they've
found his secret. Oh, there are many and
varied reasons why mines become "lost."
Over in Utah they will tell you of the
lost silver mine of Pish·la-ki. It is no
fable, that mine. Many years ago the
avajo Indians knew it and dug raw silver
from it. Silver so rich they could work it
without smelting; pure silver they ham·
Only
met'ed into ornaments and sold.
seven men of the tribe knew its location
and with the death of th e last one went
the secret of the location of the mine. Two
white men found it, Merrick and Mitchell,
and they were killed by Indians in 1880
on their way out to civilization. The
Navajos claim the Utes did the dirty work
and perhaps are right for the killers left
the bodies with sacks of the precious ore,
which were later found. The Utes knew
nothing of th e silver and the Navajos did,
so mayhap they tell the truth when they
say th ey had no hand in the killing.
Cass Hite, miner, bad man, killer,
thought he could find the lost mine of Pish-
la-ki. He rode across the pages of history
in 1882 when he stopped at a government
surveyor's camp on the boundary between
Utah and Arizona for food and before he
left had garnered 1600 for "shares" in the
lost mine which he "thought" he could
find. He never found the mine and he
often laughed at the gullibility of the men
who had forced thei'r money on him . . .
also he admitted that he had never in-
tended to cut them in on his find if he had
located it.
Original discovery of Pish·la-ki is set as
1879. The finders brought out samples of
ore so rich as to be past belief, went back
in 1880 to "work the diggin's," were never
seen alive again. Late that year friends
organized a searching party and when twen-
ty heavily armed men went in, they found
the bodies and sacks of ore. Evidently the
men, Mitchell and Merrick, had relocated
their find and were headed back to civili-
zation when killed by the Indians.
Searchers thought the mine must be
somewhere nearby and combed the moun-
tains with a fine tooth comb, but never lo-
cated it. Then Rite took the trail, made
friends with th e Navajo Chief, Hoskaninni,
"The Angry One", and although the Nava-
jos liked Hite and he lived with them for
year, he never succeeded in locating the
great si lver deposit.
He built a shack on the Colorado River,
now known as Hite's Crossing, lived th ere
until the gold rush of 1898 drove him to
move further down the river to Tickaboo
Creek where he lived alone until his death
in 1912.
Desert Rats till look for Pish·la-ki. No
longer do marauding Navajos and Utes
molest them. Steel ribbons cut the desert
as streamlined trains rush through, and
high overhead swift planes carry passen·
gers, but still up the washes and over the
ridges silent men leading patient burros
plod slowly along, looking, ever looking,
and of a night the coyote makes music as
in the days of Hosteen Pish-la·ki, as Cass
Hite calne to be known; as in the days of
Mitchell and Merrick, and all those who
followed them.
As the canyon reverberates witb th e weird
but beautiful music of the coyote and the
stars gleam down, a solitary camp fire
gleams and a lean, stooped figure of a
hard·bitten miner warms his coffee in the
ashes, wolfs down his sowbelly and beans,
rolls a cigarette and sits s il en tly before
his fire to listen to the sound of the night
and dream of the morrow-when he will
find the treasure of the lost mine of Pish-
la-ki.
•
COIN
MACHINE
REVIEW
11
FOR
AUGUST
1941