Legend of The Lost Peg-Leg  (An historical narrative)
by Ed Keenan, author of Cow Chip Poetry

There’s all sorts of wild desert tales
Surroundin’ Peg-leg Pete
How he found black gold and lost it
Blazin’ a trail in desert heat

Because my ‘Ol Dad was a rock-hound
I heard the story all my life
And one desert yarn about Peg-leg Pete
Was how he used his knife

Shot in the leg while fightin’ Indians
Around eighteen twenty-one
He cut off his leg with a huntin’ knife
He was one tough son-of-a-gun

Makin’ a special socket for his stirrup
Carved to fit his wooden peg
He could ride with the best of them
With his famous wooden leg

Now as it turns out he’s the same one
Known as Peg-leg Smith
But the name I heard while growin’up
Had a little different twist

He was not a miner or a prospector
But just a drifter on the take
Seekin’ whiskey-fortune or lady luck
A sales pitch he could make

He sure didn’t work a vein of quartz
A’buildin’ out a stamp rig
Or a pick and shovel with dynamite
So as to prove up his dig

No he found black gold on the ground
Where he stopped to rest
On some black and barren desert hill
A’facin’ toward the west

On a butte he scanned for signs of water
Seein’ black rocks in a shallow
He kicked one breakin' the out shell
Revealing a golden yellow

Not thinkin’ of gold he was unimpressed
He thought maybe a copper ore
So he put a few rocks in his burro pack
Instead of pickin’ up a lot more

Then his faithful burro led him to water
Just as he was dying and cursed
And she pawed hole in a sandy ravine
That finally quenched his thirst

Well Peg-leg drifts into town one day
To some saloon we are told
And a miner wondered where this chap
Came up with all this gold

The word was out and quickly spread
That these black crusty nuggets
That Peg-leg Smith brought in to town
Could fill two larder buckets 

Now Peg-leg soon became the object
Of every greedy prospector
Wantin’ to know just where he’d been
By each section mile and hectare 

But bein’ desert wise and the cagey sort
He was not easily followed
Many tried all sorts of crafty ways
But he was never shadowed

He just vanished when he had a need
Like a ghost he up’d and fled
Then show’d up with a few more nuggets
He had ‘em scratchin’ their heads 

Just where did Peg-leg have his claim?
That he could keep so secret
Hobblin’ peg-leg over the rugged desert
Just how long could he keep it?

He must have had some nuggets hidden
Because he never found the spot
Where he first picked up those walnuts
That put his name up at the top

In fact he was a horse thief and a liar
Another a drunkard on the take
A brown quartz sample veined in gold
He’d flash to con grubstake

But many times he went back searchin’
And he never gave up his tryin’
To find that trail of his lost footsteps
So it’s not likely he was lyin’

Was it three buttes in the Santa Rosa’s? 
Or the Chocolate Mountain range
From Yuma to the Borrego badlands
There is an awful lot of change

Maybe three hills in the Muchacho’s
That helps confuse the lore
In the dunes of furnace-killin’ heat
A mind-mirage spins folklore 

The confusion mounts when one is told
There was another Peg-leg Smith
Two Peg-leg Smiths’ and a Peg-leg Pete
Now which one do you go with? 

Well old Peg-leg Smith he died a pauper
Not in some wild Indian war
But in a dingy hotel in San Francisco
Right next to an assay store

It’s not that his strike was never found
One old miner brought in a sack
Of the same nuggets of black-spar gold
All covered with shellac

They all assayed the same percentage
A metal alloy of mostly gold
That kind of proof has made believers
Of doubters young and old

There is a tale back in eighteen-eighty
Of an Indian near Warner Ranch
Who would vanish for days in the desert
And return with gold in his pants

The same black pebbles of crusty gold
He would use to pay his bills
Cleaned and weighed on an assay scale
Taken from those desert hills

Killed in a knife fight drinkin’ one night
And when they made a search
Carefully hidden in his bed and shack
Was four thousand dollars worth!

Then again as late as nineteen sixty five
Someone tried puttin’ the tale to rest
By sendin’ samples to a ‘desert magazine’
Of black nuggets for them to test

Claiming he found the lost Peg-leg mine
Some quite a few years ago
And that he sold three hundred thousand
But there’s really no way to know

So Peg-leg’s hike from Yuma to Carrizo
Prior to eighteen thirty five
And findin’ and losin’ that pile of gold
Is a saga that’s still alive

All those campfire tales of lost treasure
From Yuma to Julian and Hector
Haunts the hearts of rock-hound dreamers
And maybe a real prospector

His legend lives on each chocolate butte
And in gulches of dried-up streams
Where followin’ the trackless wastelands
Leads to hoax or bonanza-dreams

So his story still fires the imagination
Like thoughts in a powder keg
Of finding his famed hills of black gold
The golden legend of Peg-leg 

It’s truly a wonderful childhood treasure
That I’m certain to never forget
And I’ll always enjoy hearin’ that legend
No matter how old I get!

Ed Keenan © 02-03

COW CHIP/COWBOY POETRY: For a poem, click here.
Cow Chip Poetry - Lies, Lingo and Lore by Southwest Cowboy Poet, Ed Keenan. This is an entertaining collection of cowboy poetry with an extensive 'Glossary of Cowboy Lingo'. Great gift - perfect for trail rides, cookouts, campouts. Contact Arroyo Press, (888) 784-8282, PO Box 1028, Vista CA, 92085.www.SouthwestBlend.com/cowchippoetry