LUCK LEADS TO ROMANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 November 1922, Page 9

LUCK LEADS TO ROMANCE.

A romance of the American silver mines, which reads like a story from Bret Harte, is recalled by the death at Sacramento. California, of Mrs. James L. Butler, one of the richest women in the United States. Twenty years ago. at the age of 49, Mrs. Butler and her date husband owned a small ranch in Northern California. Having difficulty in making ends meet, the couple decided to migrate to the Klondyke district of Nye County, in the State of Nevada, where tha discovery of gold had started a rush of -fortune hunters (says the New York correspondent of the Daily Clironiele). Mr. and Mrs. Butler hitched a couple of sturdy donkeys to a wagon, and set out on their long journey. Four miles north of w'hat is now the important banking town of Tonopah they wore lost in the mountains. To add to their troubles, the two donkeys strayed from the camp, which had been pitched for the night. For four days the stranded fortune-seekers hunted high and low for the animals, Mrs. Butler going one way and Mr. Butler another. On the fourth day, in the late afternoon. Mrs. Butler. • retracing her steps, weary, hungry, and disheartened, sat down on a lodge of rock to have a good cry. Part of the roc? .'rumbled beneath her weight, and. when she could see through her tears, she noticed that tbo spot thus bared looked b/fght in the light of the setting sun. Two hours later her husband returned with the