“Believe Old Man Has Bandits’ Treasure”
OCEAN PARK, April 27.— (Spl.)—John
Stokes, living the life of a primitive man in the Topango canyon, far from the
haunts of man, has been the cause of a great deal of talk in the last few days.
Stokes has apparently no
occupation or way of supporting himself, yet he always has gold to purchase
whatever he desires. Occasionally he has sold discolored golden ornaments of
antique pattern, and several times he has disposed of small lumps of gold that had
been recently melted, and once he tried to pass a coin that was without date
and bore an inscription in Spanish.
At one time there was
considerable talk of buried treasure on this coast, supposed to have been
buried by a band of Mexican bandits in the early part of the last century, and some
people think that he has found the buried treasure. Several men have gone up to
the canyon to question the old man, but he refuses to answer the questioners.
Prospectors have recently
gone over every foot of the canyon in the neighborhood of his camp, in the vain
hope that Stokes had found a gold mine and the melted lumps of gold were the
results of his labors there, but they have declared that there are no “indications”
in sight, and the stories of the golden ornaments and the old coins tend to
strengthen “the belief that the old man has found the cached booty of the
bandits.
