Buried vaults stacked with gold bars, secret caches of coins and jewels plundered from the Spaniards and the Church, exposed veins of ore with nuggets the size of turkey eggs. Guarded by the bones of dead men, the legendary treasures of the Southwest still wait for those foolhardy or desperate enough to seek them.

Death is the cure for gold fever, and the lucky few who saw the riches and lived to tell of them spent the rest of their lives searching, haunted by faulty memories, changed landscapes, and quirks of fate. It is the stories of these men and the wealth they pursued that J. Frank Dobie tells in Apache Gold and Yaqui Silver.

In this masterful collection of tales, Dobie introduces us to Pedro Loco, General Mexhuira's ghost, the German, and a colorful group of oddfellows driven to roam the hills in an eternal quest for the hidden entrance, the blazed tree, the box canyon, for fabulous wealth glimpsed, lost, and never forgotten.

Are treasures really there? Searchers still seek them. But for the reader, the treasure is here—Dobie's tales are pure gold.

J. Frank Dobie (1888–1964) was a folklorist and author of many books about Texas life and culture.

• Introductory: The Trail of a Story Hunter
• The Lost Adams Diggings
  • I. Enough Gold to Load a Pack Horse
  • II. "The Apaches Made Me Forget"
  • III. The Man Who Was Not Dead
  • IV. The German
  • V. The Man Who Knows
  • VI. Where the Gleam Led Captain Cooney
  • VII. Hounded Hunters
  • VIII. The Malpais and Some Maybes
  • IX. The Indian's Secret
• Sierra Madre and Bronze Guards
• The Lost Tayopa Mine
  • I. Camino Real of Silver Pack Trains
  • II. Eight Days Towards the Sunset
  • III. Under the Mesa of the Bell-Maker
  • IV. "Tayopa Is Here"
  • V. "Can You Read Shadder Writing?"
• Scalp Hunters' Ledge
• El Naranjal Pedro Loco
• Not the Will of God
• General Mexhuira's Ghost
• Appendix
  • I. Where I Dug for Adams Gold
  • II. A Note on Scalp Hunters in Mexico