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NEW
YORK TIMES – NEW YORK
MARCH
13, 1904
HUNTING
FOR INDIAN’S GOLD
A
family of Nez Perce Indians is searching an eighty-acre farm near
Culdesac, Idaho, in an effort to locate $12,000 of buried gold left by
Reuben Wepsheli, the father of the family and a full-blooded Nez Perce.
On this farm Wapsheli lived with his squaw for sixty years.
He tilled a small farm and raised many cayuses which ran at large
on the neighboring range. From the proceeds of horse sales and rent received from land
leased to whites he accumulated more than $13,000, which he kept buried
in a secret spot. Of four
children, Amos, the eldest son, was the old man’s confidant, and often
went with his father in the dead of night to bury more gold or secure
money for some immediate use. During
his later years the old Indian removed the greater part of the money to
a new place known only to himself.
His family always knew the amount thus buried, and he often
promised that thus buried, and he often promised that before dying he
would tell the secret to Amos. Three
months ago Wapsheli was taken sick.
Before Amos could arrive from his ranch twenty miles away the old
man died without divulging the burial place of his gold.
Amos, now thirty years old, is superintending the search for the
buried money.
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