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   "You goin down there now?" asked Bill.

   "That's what we came for," said Thomason. "We're going to take out enough gold to finance ourselves, and we'll open that city as a curiosity of the world."

   "That's it," said White. "We’re through with the scientists. We tried to make a present of our discovery to science because we thought they would be interested.  But they tried to rob us, and then laughed at us and abused us..."

Saying thanks and farewell the treasure hunters left, promising to return, and drove in their car down Emigrant Canyon towards Death Valley. Late that same afternoon Bourke Lee (the author of DEATH VALLEY MEN, which records his own experiences in Death Valley - Branton) met the three of them on the floor of the valley. Their car was parked beside the road between Furnace Creek Ranch and the Salt Bed. The men were patching a tube. They did not need any help so he (Bourke Lee) said goodby and went south in the valley. He never saw Fred Thomason, Mr. White or his wife again, and ten days later when he again visited Bill Corcoran and Jack Stewart, they told him that they hadn't seen them since.

   When another week went by and the proprietors of the lost city did not reappear, the author and Bill (Cocoran) made a trip down into Death Valley in their car and took along a pair of field glasses, hoping to see some sign of the explorers or the "windows" in the side of the mountain. They failed to find any sign of either.

About 17 years after DEATH VALLEY MEN was published there appeared an article in the September, 1949 issue of FATE magazine, pp.17-21, which tends to