Greetings Friends,
Tropical Tramp wrote:
ORO don't you just hate smart females?
NO heck where would I be if I didn't manage to find one!
I'd sooner have a smart female around than a smart-arsed one any day!
Blindbowman I have to ask you, why you choose to put any faith in the Holmes version of the Dutchman's history? Lets think about this a moment. Dick Holmes was a tracker, known to Waltz in person well before his deathbed. He had in fact caught Holmes tracking him to the mine on one occasion, in which Holmes reported that he saw Waltz setting up ahead of him with his rifle sights directly on Holmes, so Holmes decided to quit following him. The next time Waltz met Holmes in town, he told Holmes that if he caught him tracking him again, he would kill him. No one doubted that he would.
This is some idea of how Waltz viewed Holmes - a tracker, a sneak, a claim-jumper! A man he directly threated to KILL if he caught him again! NOT a man that he viewed as any kind of FRIEND but the complete opposite. So we have a possible motive for Waltz telling Holmes a pack of lies, intended to throw him off the track.
Next if we examine some of the points of fact, we find the Holmes version to be problematic. For one, there is no record of Jacob Waltz having a nephew at all; did he have a partner, yes - his name was also Jacob, but last name Weiser (also spelled Wiser and several other ways) a man who was only a few years younger than Waltz, not a young teenager. Waltz tells Holmes about killing a whole pack of people, including some Mexicans (presumed "Peraltas") who "he thought were Apaches working his mine" - hmm well how many Apaches do we know of that were out working in gold mines? Not impossible, but certainly unlikely. We also know that Weiser was in fact attacked by Apaches and survived long enough to make it to a ranch where he later died of his wounds - not murdered by Waltz. Waltz tells Holmes two absolute LIES too, that we can PROVE - he said he was "not a citizen of the United States" and "had no intention of becoming one" as the reasons why he never filed his claim. Well we know for a fact that Waltz was a naturalized citizen of the United States, and had been one for quite some years by the time of his death.
So how much faith should we give to the Holmes account, which includes a whole colony of Mexicans in the tale, including sheep, cattle, women and children who all died in the infamous Peralta massacre except for one or two survivors. We know that Waltz certainly considered Holmes to be a claim-jumper and a sneak thief, and probably saw Holmes hovering around his death bed waiting for his chance to steal the remaining gold ore beneath his bed, as well as to learn the secret of the location of his gold mine. We know that Waltz did in fact try to explain to his friends (yes friends!) Julia Thomas and Reinhardt "Reiny" Petrasch, even tried to take them to the mine once but his health failed him. It seems a logical conclusion that Waltz told Holmes a complete fantasy tale, perhaps knowing that his last gold would be stolen by Holmes (Holmes in fact took the gold, telling everyone that Waltz had "given it to him") but Jacob would have the last and best laugh!
Given this consideration, it seems unlikely that any human remains found in the Superstitions would prove to be a murdered nephew of Jacob Waltz; we know that literally hundreds of people have died in those beautiful and dangerous mountains; the odds are that any human remains found are likely to be some unlucky Dutch-hunter or hiker, perhaps even a murder victim. I don't think we can tell from the photos whether these bones are in fact human or some other animal, unless of course a skull were seen as well. I don't know if human blood or other bodily fluids would leave a stain on stone exposed to the elements either - stains in the rock are more likely mineral stains.
With treasure hunting we need to
keep our pants on, particularly when a discovery of some kind of evidence is made. It is all-too-easy to make an assumption that something which COULD be evidence that "fits" with a theory or legend, MUST then be exactly that. I am not immune to over-optimism (I remember once finding an old buried "chest" that made my heart leap, only to find it was a buried COUCH!
) it is best to keep an open mind and a bit of a skeptical eye to all discoveries. I am
not saying that what Blindbowman has found cannot be the nephew of Jacob Waltz, and the Holmes version thus proven true, only that it seems logical that the Holmes version is false and we cannot tell what the bones came from,
just by looking at the photos. It is an interesting find, I hope that Blindbowman will keep us informed as to what this proves to be.
Oroblanco
