A GOLD-HUNTER'S STRANGE STORY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10365, 13 February 1897, Page 2 (Supplement)

A GOLD-HUNTER'S STRANGE STORY.

Professor Fraxk Dixon, of Kansas City, a taxidermist, has made a lucky discovery of gold in a curious way. A short time ago ho received from the Earl of Tankerville, of Chillingham Park, Northumberland, who was hunting in the Wild West, a deei's head and antlers to be treated and mounted. In preparing the head a dark yellowish incrustation upon the outer surface of tho teeth in the lower jaw attracted his attention. He. scraped off the yellow crust and dug out the little particles that filled the interstices between the teeth, collected the scrapings together in a little piece of paper, and discovered they were of pure gold. There was only one way to account for its presence in the deer's teeth. Ho had only to find the lick frequented by the deer in the neighbourhood where that buck was killed to find soil that contained the precious yellow metal. The deer not only lick the soil, but actually chew it when they are eager for salt. He next ascertained from a Mr. Minor, a friend of Lord Tankerville, that the deer had been killed in Rio Blanco County, Colorado, near a hunter's lodge, which was the headquarters of the shooting party. Mr. Dixon gave up his business, and went, fully equipped for the search, straight to Rio Blanco County. He found the hunter's lodge right up in the mountains, aud came across an old French hermit hunter named Prevot, who told him that there was gold there, and he himself had located twelve claims, some oi which assayed very rich. He said he had often picked up good nuggets in the valleys, and once when he was off oh a long hunt in a little canyon off the White.River he had found a lump of virgin gold as big as a hen's egg, which 'he took into Denver and sold at the bank. Tho next day Prevot took Dixon to his "prospects," and one of them showed a vein of ore, 3 feet wide, clearly outcropping up a mountain side for a mile. Dixon has purchased several of Prevot's claims, come back with several of his own in addition, and looks on his fortune as made.