Laurel Hill, on the old Barlow immigrant road near Mount Hood, also hides treasure, placed there by a highwayman who murdered his accomplice and buried their loot. Upon his deathbed the outlaw con fessed to his son, who spent several summers trying to find the money, but discovered only the blazes on the cedar he had been directed to seek
When two miners from the Randolph beach mines became appre hensive of robbery, they buried a five-gallon can of gold dust beneath a tree and left the country. Upon returning they found that a forest fire had swept the district. The can of gold, as yet undiscovered, ha^ been sought for years.
The Blue Bucket Mines, said to be located on a swift central Orego.1 stream that is literally pebbled with gold nuggets, have been sought fo seventy-five years. Emigrants, camping for the night on a hazardou* section of Meek's Cut-off, fished in the stream. Yellow pebbles, taken from the stream bed, and hammered flat on wagon tires, served as sinkers in the swift current. Children filled a blue bucket with the stones but all were tossed aside as the train proceeded. Several years later tales of the gold strikes in California renewed discussion of the yellow pebbles, and a wild rush to discover the Blue Bucket Mines ensued They have never been discovered.
Aptness of description, sometimes with a jest, is evident in the names applied to pioneer Oregon localities. Some of this nomenclature persists, but much of it has been discarded by a more polite but less poetic era. Fair Play was so called from the fairness of its horse races. Lick Skillet and Scanty Grease have an obvious origin. Row River was named for neighborhood feuds; Soap Creek for bachelors who had no soap; and Ah Doon Hill for a Chinese who was shanghaied there. Hell's Canyon on Snake River, the deepest chasm in America, is as descriptive of wild grandeur as God's Valley in the Nehalem country is of peace.
