Desert Gazette

There’s a mountain out in the Mojave about half way between Victorville and Barstow. It’s called Stoddard Mountain. Next to the mountain is a road, Stoddard Wells road. Of course the road runs from Stoddard Wells to Barstow and Victorville. The road, the well and the mountain are named after old man Stoddard, a Mormon pioneer of San Bernardino- But, this story isn’t so much about him.

 Old man Stoddard had a friend, and the friend came to visit him.  The man brought quite a  bit of money with him, all of it in gold. Now gold is heavy and can’t just be dropped into any old cloth bag.  The man sacked it up in two sturdy, buckskin bags, and made his trip across the Mojave Desert. Somewhere in Summit Valley just before the trail dropped into Cajon Pass, the man got a little nervous and feared a robbery. So he buried the bags by a sycamore tree and continued on his way.

Arriving in San Bernardino, he contacted Stoddard and told his story. Stoddard agreed to accompany him to the cache.  When they got there though, the bags and gold were gone.

They’d searched around a bit and found a gold coin.  Soon, they found more lying  scattered about showing no definate trail. They picked up what they could and recovered more than half of what there was originally.  It was getting late and even with an escort it was dangerous being out and easily ambushed. So they started on their way back to San Bernardino.

They hadn’t rode but a few minutes, when silhouetted at the top of a rise, two scrawny coyotes were having an argument over their dinner- A shredded buckskin bag.

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I suppose coyotes have different priorities than a man does. They seen the bags as valuable and the gold as worthless.  The gold?  Well Stoddard and his partner went back, but didn’t find anymore, and as far as I know, the coyotes were never seen spending it.