The year was 1870 or thereabouts - the land untamed, prospectors eager and avaricious. A rag tag band girded with picks, shovels and mules waded through raging rivers, up rock-lined mountains and across expansive plains to reach their destination along the North Saskatchewan River in a placed later called "Alberta."

Blackjack and Lemon separated from the group, striking out for the Crowsnest Pass or perhaps Kananaskis. Some say it was Nez Perce, others McGillivary Creek. No matter. Wherever it was, trader and buffalo hunter Lafayette French would fund the expedition of these ill-fated partners and himself become a player in its tragic drama.

Unlike most, Blackjack and Lemon's quest was almost immediately successful. Mining was hard work in those days with no benefit of infrared technology, geological studies and high tech equipment. There's no question these lads discovered the Lemon lode more by fluke than foresight.

Many details of their story are sketchy and questionable, but seventy years later the Alberta Folklore Quarterly would confirm this part of the story:

"Blackjack and Lemon found likely showings of gold in the river. Following the mountain stream upwards toward the headwaters they discovered rich diggings from grass roots to bedrock [and] . . . accidentally discovered the ledge from which the gold came."

Another consistent fact is that the discovery would spell disaster for Blackjack, Lemon and all those who followed. Soon after making the discovery, Lemon and Blackjack began to argue bitterly. An exhausted Blackjack eventually collapsed onto his fireside bedroll, but Lemon couldn't rest. He paced and fretted and fumed until his rage got the better of him. Grabbing the very axe that had helped them make their fortune, Lemon split his sleeping partner's skull. Two Stoney Indians secretly witnessed the vicious murder. They carried the sordid news back to Chief Bearspaw, who cursed the site as an evil place. The next morning Lemon fled back to civilization but would attempt to return time and again.

To others, Lemon claimed that Blackfoot Indians had murdered his partner, but his conscience wouldn't allow him to forget the truth. Guilt soon drove him mad. During moments of sanity, Lemon would arrange for expeditions to attempt to relocate the mine but, each time, deep remorse over his partner's murder would befuddle his thinking. With each failed attempt to locate the gold, Lemon lost more credibility. Eventually, most dismissed his story as the ramblings of a madman.

Yet insatiable curiosity prevailed and others would take up the search. Every group that sought out the elusive site met with such calamity that they fled in terror and defeat. Forest fires, strange debilitating illnesses, and death beset the gold hunters. William Bendow, purportedly one of the witnesses to Blackjack's murder, acquiesced to requests that he guide a party to the mine. Bendow died mysteriously during the expedition -some say it was Bearspaw's curse that killed him.

Lafayette French was among those who set out to find the elusive cache, and apparently one of the few who found it. But before he could reveal its location to his companions, French died of complications from burns suffered in a cabin fire.