Word: uranium
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...shaded Mormon oasis amid the wind-worn rocks and wild hills of south-central Utah. Basically a cow town, it was a pleasant stop for tourists and a sometime location for Hollywood westerns. Three months ago, Kanab's quiet was disturbed by the discovery of commercial-grade uranium ten miles east of town...
Steadily, uranium fever mounted. Some 1,300 claims were filed on lands in the surrounding desert and mountains. Outsiders came to Kanab to prospect, and among them was Leroy Albert Wilson, 62, a brawler, an inventor, a Mormon excommunicated for defending polygamy and the leader of a strange band of men and women. Last week Wilson was found on his left side, lying on a sandy, sunny slope, a Geiger counter still clicking in his right hand. Six .45-caliber slugs had torn great holes in his back and head. He was the first man to be dry-gulched...
Wilson's colony heard of Kanab's uranium strike. He and some of his followers left their mountain fastness to take hotel rooms in Kanab. Wilson had prospected the Kanab area before and filed claims. Other prospectors assumed that he planned to develop or sell his property...
...Practical Joker. Before they met, the town was jolted when a stranger appeared at the Kane County recorder's office. In one hand was a chunk of ore, in the other a Geiger counter. The rock seemed to be super-rich with uranium. One prospector who saw it said: "It made that there jagger counter go nuts!" The stranger excitedly told the recorder where he had found the rock, in a seldom-visited foothill area west of town, the opposite direction from the February strike. He filed his claim for the usual 20 acres...
...street that day, he met Wilson, told him of the discovery and then disappeared. A few days later, investigation revealed that the stranger was an Arizona uranium miner who had staged his performance only as a practical joke...