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it out of the cave? Again, you don't fool a prominent assayer by ‘salting’ a sample, meaning to load it with a mineral that doesn't belong.

    “However, some are not skeptics and that brings us to Kokoweef mountain, one of the Ivanpah range, as of today. In sight from it is the throbbing freeway connecting Los Angeles with neon-lit Las Vegas about 60 miles eastward. Gone are the pathfinders and lonely men of pick and pan, their world goods atop a burro. Gleaming vehicles cover in hours the miles that required weeks and give no thought to the misty bands which passed this way and vanished into the sunset. Neither the ancients with dry tongues or those without a care have had a thought of abundant water in the darkness below, not to mention an El Dorado that would make Midas a penny pincher.    

     “As this is written, I have returned from Kokoweef mountain and found new life there, with the situation under control. A serious group holds claims covering the critical area and is engaged in development toward

eventually attaining those depths. They expect to reach the river which Earl Dorr said is flowing through sands laden with fragments and nuggets of native yellow placer gold. Obviously, members of this group are firm believers in the Dorr story. They have learned much about the local geology which lends encouragement and, they hope, some confirmation of their belief.

   “As their guest I was escorted to the mountain. With a crew member we climbed a dizzying zigzag trail no wider than my feet to a lofty perch where an entrance had been used by Dorr long ago. Pausing on the way to gasp for breath, I could see the works of the world’sof the world’s only major rare earth mine on Clark mountain, across the freeway to Las Vegas and the snow-cap of Mt. Charleston in Nevada. On reaching the hole, I saw it covered by a huge iron door frame that Dorr had packed up those rocky steeps on his powerful shoulders. That must have called for superhuman effort.