>>>>Strange tales come out of the desert-tales of phantoms rollicking in the dry, quivering air. They thrive as well in the desert as in the musty halls of haunted houses. Apparently the ghosts can adapt themselves to circumstances and have little choice in the locality they haunt or the size of the audience, just so long as the spot was once a theater of human and dramatic action. If the passing of souls among scenes of strife produces ghosts, then the desert has ample material from which to select its acts and performers.
>>>>>>>One of the strangest of such stories was told about fifteen years ago by a traveler at Kane Springs, near the Salton Sea (At that time the Springs supported a one-room lunch stand with a lean-to in the rear; and, it does not have the air of desolation it had then. The same tale, if told today, might not fit the locality so well or seem as plausible. I had stopped there for a cold drink and, finding another equally thirsty customer, began to talk with him. Out of this very interesting conversation came the story of the Green Ghost. It seemed convincing enough to be true, then; but a later review of the supposed events led me to the conclusion that it was just another desert story built up from a series of unrelated happenings that had been grouped to form a continuity. Several weeks later, however, evidence was found that placed it as a record of an actual occurrence.
>>>>>>> The traveling man heard the story from a desert derelict to whom he had given a ride. The wanderer claimed that he knew the hero of the eventful experience, one Charlie Pronto, an itinerant prospector who had roamed the desert some twenty years before, between 1890 and 1900. The story was essentially as follows:
>>>>>>> Charlie Pronto had been hanging around Yuma, making himself friendly with some Indians who lived near by. He heard that the Indians knew of treasure spots in the hills, places where they could go and pick up plenty of nuggets any time they wanted to. He lent a kindly attentive ear t this chatter and stored away all suggestions he could remember.
>>>>>>> After hanging around for a long time, he felt that he should turn into an Indian himself if he didn’t get away; so he made up his mind to risk everything on a bold move. He proposed to his best Indian friend-the one he thought might prove the most susceptible-that they go after some of this Indian gold; or, if he were afraid to walk out on the tribe, to let him in on the secret, and he would go after it alone. The Indian demurred, however, and put him off with “Manana,” which,, in the southland, never arrives.
>>>>>>> What he did do was to tell so much Indian lore, so many strange and superstitious happenings, that Charlie began to be afraid to go alone, especially when he heard the God of Fury, who smothers with burning sand all those who seek to gather the black gold-laden stones. After a fortnight of this, old Charlie was so ‘spooked up’ that he hardly dared go out after dark. He was just at the point where the Indian wanted him to be. But, Charlie fooled his friend as well as himself. One bright yellow morning he mustered up courage enough to start out.
>>>>>>> “I made a great circle by starting west for a day’s travel,” Charlie afterward told the desert derelict; “and then, when I felt no Indians were following me, I turned north, for another day, and then east into the lower end of the Chocolates (Map 3), where I believed the gold was located. If I had not been followed in my box-like course, I was pretty sure I had fooled them.
>>>>>>> “One night I camped near the bank of the Alamo River, a few miles south by east of the big dry lake. The country was practically level except for great sand hills where the roots of desert bushes had banked the sand as high as a man’s head. In between these hummocks were winding aisles leading no place.
>>>>>>> “I was sitting by the embers of my small supper fire smoking my pipe and watching a big orange moon climb over the dunes, when out in one of the wandering passages I saw that someone had spied my camp, and I looked for some trouble in getting rid of whoever it was.
>>>>>>> “I strained my eyes in the milky darkness, trying to make out what it was; but there was nothing there. I even got up and walked around to one side to get a better view, but everything was quiet. So I went back to my camp and my pipe. But I had no more than sat down again before it was there again; and this time my hair stood on end, for there was no doubt about what it was. It was a haunt, a ghost of some kind new to me.
>>>>>>> “It trailed along in an elongated fashion, winding around through the sand hummocks as easily as a snake through grass. Sometimes it flattened down in a huddle like it was resting or looking for something, and then it would swoop around a bush at high speed only to settle down again and mess around in the sand. All this time its color kept changing from iridescent green to yellow, then orange, then to a deep persimmon, while I stood there stiff with fear, with chills running up and down my back and into my hair. After about an hour, it seemed, the thing swept up from behind a knoll like a deep flame and spun into a gyrating whirl, turning darker and darker, and finally getting blue and purple and losing its color in a black mass.
>>>>>>> “As I watched it, I saw only a black shapeless thing in the distance that slowly turned into-nothing. A gust of wind crept down through the sand hills and set up a dry whining rattle in the barren arms of the desert bushes. I may have slept that night, and then again I may not. Anyway, when the sun cleared out the spooks, I didn’t feel so darn shaky or lonesome; so I went out to about where I thought the thing had been, and there I picked up an old pistol. The wooden handle had been sand-blasted into practically nothing, and the barrel was filled with sand.
>>>>>>>“Just why I started digging around there near the pistol is hard to say. About six inches down I hit something hard, and in another two minutes I had uncovered an old leather box about a foot and a half long by eight inches deep. It was made of bullhide, hard as iron, and it was badly warped. When I lifted it up, the cover flew open. It was empty. There wasn’t a darn thing in it but some sand that had drifted into the corners.”
>>>>>>> There is little more to add except that Charlie Pronto firmly believed he had seen the ghost of the fellow who owned the box. Needless to say, he did not go into the chocolates for gold. Maybe there was something in that Indian stuff after all.
>>>>>>> A sequel to this story was found in the San Diego News of March 15, 1906:
>>>>>>> “On Tuesday, Thomas Moore discovered a cache of gold of between fifty and sixty pounds, in the bank of the Alamo River near Brawley. It had evidently been deposited in by-gone years and was brought to view by the crumbling of the river bank. It was in ingots, the heaviest of which weighed twenty pounds. Mr. Moore brought his find in to the bank. Its value was estimated to be at least $ 10.000.”
>>>>>> No one knows how the gold bars came to be hidden in the river bank, but there are certain facts regarding the burying of treasure that may aid in solving the problem.
>>>>>>> For untold years innumerable treasures have been buried. Some of them have been found, but most of them are still lost. Old writing desks and cabinets are often found to possess secret drawers and compartments, and in them have been found letters and maps containing directions for locating hidden hoards. But these papers have seldom led to treasure.
>>>>>>> When instructions are given to “go ten paces from the big cherry tree, and then eight to the right to the place where the old churn used to stand, and then dig,” it has sometimes been possible for the searcher actually to find the old iron box. But usually it has been empty, and the common idea has been that someone got there first and removed the treasure.
>>>>>>> On the face of it this is wrong; for even if someone had dug it up and taken out the gold or jewels, why should he have gone to the trouble of reburying the box? What actually happened in such cases was that the chest was empty when it was first buried. The treasure it was suppose to contain was deposited separately in a place adjacent to the buried box. The one who buried it was probably the only one who knew how to find the valuables after the box was located. If one had a treasure to be concealed, and it was feared that manmade landmarks might at some future time be obliterated, some other landmarks-not so easily effaced- might be selected.
>>>>>>> As to the golden bars in the bank of the Alamo River, it may be assumed that some prospector or traveler was camping there and saw strangers approaching from a considerable distance. They may have been Indians or white men, but the owner of the gold was taking no chances of being held up with a fortune in his possession. So he buried the leather box in a place he thought he could identify later, and buried his gold-let us say-exactly twenty paces due west.
>>>>>>>Any number of theories may be advanced as to what happened after that, but the finding of the pistol near the box suggests that its owner was killed on the spot. While the box may have been discovered by the thieves, it is evident that the treasure was not. It remained hidden for years until the river bank crumbled away and exposed the gold to the astonished gaze of Thomas Moore.
