The Lost Adams - 2

Left penniless and provision-less by the Apache raid, Adams made his way to the nearby Pima village with his team of horses, hopeful he could barter a few of them for enough supplies to get back to Los Angeles. He soon was in negotiations with a group of miners who were camped nearby. The group of twenty had come over to Arizona from California, and were currently engaged in panning a nearby river. They were also in need of horses.

Pima Village by Granger, 1864.

As Adams discussed terms with the miners, the group was approached by a Mexican teeenager dressd like an Apache, with a deformed left ear. 'Gotch Ear' as the lad was known, had been kidnapped as a child along with his brother from their families home in Sonora, by Apaches who had raised them as one of their own. After a recent argument with and subsequent murder of a member of that same tribe, he had run away in fear of Apache retribution, when he had come upon the miners in their camp.

Claiming that the paltry nuggets and slivers of gold he saw the miners harvesting were nothing compared to the piles of the stuff he had seen, Gotch Ear offered to lead the men to a certain fortune in return for two of Adams' horses and some supplies from the miners, including a riffle and a saddlebag full of ammunition. The miners, heads and hearts filled with thoughts of riches ripe for the taking, soon agreed to the plan, intrigued, as was Adams, with the tale of nuggets the size of acorns littering a hidden canyon floor, somewhere far to the northeast.