The Counterfeit Gold Dust Panic That Brought Vigilantes to the Valley

VIGILANTES.—The citizens of the Payette valley have formed themselves into a Vigilance Committee, for the purpose of ridding their valley of a band of horse thieves and gold dust counterfeiters, who have lately had their headquarters there. The Committee made a descent upon the counterfeiters' den two or three weeks ago and captured a mill—which they had used for grinding their "dust" into shape—together with a lot of spelter, crucibles, and other counterfeiting materials. They also captured five men who were suspected of belonging to the band, and were in pursuit of others. There has been a general skedaddling of the thieving and counterfeiting fraternity from the Payette Valley. Some of them have taken up quarters at Auburn, and some in the Grand Ronde valley, and four or five of them, it is said, crossed the mountains to this valley last week. The fact that there is an unusual amount of bogus dust in circulation here now is pretty good evidence that some of the counterfeiters are about.

COINAGE.—Greenbacks, as a currency, in contradistinction to gold dust, are becoming somewhat more acceptable to the business men of the upper country generally than they have heretofore been. Traders generally complain that they have lost upon their gold dust the past season, on account of its being so much mixed with counterfeit.

THE REASON WHY.—There has been a very general complaint hereabouts recently on account of the scarcity of coin in circulation. The reason of this is that many persons who have heretofore been purchasing dust, having been too frequently "nipped" with bogus dust, have stopped buying for the present. There is plenty of dust in the market, and as soon as the mixed article is disposed of, the gold dust trade will be regulated again. The operations of the Payette Vigilantes will have a tendency to hasten this result.