Our cover for this issue is a bit of an intriguing mystery. Not concerning who we received it from; as that was Bill Mapoles, noted frontier historian and regular contributor to
The Black Powder Cartridge News. However, as you will read in Bill’s excellent article, “Death in the Desert” in this issue, the circumstances around why this old Colt ended up in the desert with two fired cases and three live rounds left, can be open to much conjecture. Given where it was found, almost anything would be possible. It really makes one wish these old firearms could talk…although running the “backtrack” on them is almost more fun than knowing what they actually did. Read Bill’s article and see if you don’t agree; or maybe you will come up with another scenario that he hasn’t thought of.
