“Not exactly. I’ve studied this area for years. Trekked a good deal of it on foot and by vehicle. If any location holds promise, it is this.” He drew a quick circle around an area north of Harrisburg. “St. Anthony’s Wilderness has always intrigued me because of the stories of a long-lost gold mine. There’s even a Gold Mine Road that runs through it. The area is rife with legends of abandoned towns and mining villages. It’s extremely rugged. It’s one of the few stretches of territory that hasn’t been developed.”

“Legends are one thing,” Austin said. “Facts are another.”

Saxon turned his attention back to the papyrus. “There’s an un-stained section here that has the only mention of a mine. The surrounding words have been blotted out by mold, except for a phrase that describes a horseshoe river turn.” Saxon’s long finger traced the river to a prominent U-shaped bend in the Susquehanna. “St. Anthony’s Wilderness is east of the bend.” He shook his head. “It’s a huge area. We could search for years without finding anything.”

Austin slipped a piece of paper from the chart pouch and placed it next to the map. A curving line on the paper matched the river bend on the map. Other squiggles denoted mountains and valleys to the east of the river. “This is a copy of a Phoenician map of Solomon’s mine. It was found with some Thomas Jefferson papers.”

“Jefferson? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“We’re hoping it will in time. What do you think of the map?”

Saxon read the Phoenician writing on the paper. “This shows exactly where the mine is in relation to the river.”

“Before we get too ecstatic, I have to point out a problem with this,” Austin said. “The Susquehanna is a mile wide and a foot deep, as the locals say. It’s studded with rapids and islands. There’s no way a ship of Tarshish could have made its way upriver.”

“But cargo could have come down,” Saxon said. “The river would have been deep enough for a boat to come down during the spring snowmelt.”

“Tricky, but possible with the right kind of boat,” Austin admitted.

“The right kind of boat was called a Susquehanna Ark,” Saxon said with a smile. “They started running them in the 1800s from Steuben County, New York, downriver to Port Deposit, Maryland. They were basically big pontoon rafts, seventy-five feet long and sixteen feet wide of beam. They came down in the spring flood tide as the snow melted, carrying produce to market. The arks would be dismantled, their lumber sold, and the crews walked home. It took eight days to float down and six to walk back. They carried millions of dollars in cargo before the railroads put them out of business.”

“A simple but brilliant concept,” Zavala said. “The Phoenicians could have used the same technique to transport gold.”