Jeff, thanx for the clipping . San Benito county is the next county east of me.
".... according to a story told by so & so, who says such & such ... "
I bet this can be embellished nonsense. Here is a reporter merely going by what someone tells him. And the fellow telling him could be himself simply passing on something he heard. Yet he puts himself in the first-person-singular. But when/if you press him, turns out he didn't actually *see* the treasure. But he has it on good authority from those he talked to, blah blah (and from there, it's permanent regression, each person telling it in the first-person-singular).
I saw that play out firsthand on my trip to Mexico to go cache hunting. People tell you of treasures they saw. And ... you get down there, and ... press them for more details ... and it turns out they saw a single coin (purported to come from a giant stash). Or they are reporting what their good friend Juan told them, blah blah. So you seek out Juan, and ... guess what ? He too didn't actually *see* it either. But got it on good authority from Jose. So you seek out Jose and ... guess what ?
So too do I have my doubts about this clipping. And notice, it's of necessity ... "8 ft. deep". No good treasure can't be insanely deep. I know San Benito county soil like the back of my hand, d/t I've done a lot of detecting there (stage stops, etc....). And I can tell you for a fact that it would be murder to dig a hole, 8 ft. deep, at the foot of an oak tree . Why the heck to need to go that deep, when .... as long as the top is covered, it's still equally hidden ? And Oak trees (if full grown) take centuries to grow. And the entire perimeter on the ground has prohibitive roots.
And ... of course ... no good treasure story can be complete without a treasure map.
I'm not buying it. But fun story to read.
