Chapter X: Part 10

Metheglin Creek of Bell County is the only creek, so far as I can learn, in the United States bearing its name. The account of how it got its unique name I have derived from old-timers familiar with the naming, and just this year the facts as given below were confirmed to me by the son of the pioneer Morrison.

One of the oldest pioneer settlers of Bell County was a ranchman named Morrison. He settled in the extreme northwest part of Bell County, and his land extended into Coryell County. His home was close to an unnamed creek. Like many other pioneers of unexceptionable character, he was inclined to imbibe too freely at times. His wife never called him by any other name than “Honey,” a fact well known to the neighbors. One day his wife asked “Honey” to fetch her a bucket of water from the creek. He was pretty well “shot” when he leaned over to fill the bucket, and fell into the creek. A waggish neighbor who witnessed the accident instantly christened the creek “Metheglin”—a mixture of honey and water. And Metheglin Creek has been the name ever since.

Metheglin was a favorite improvised drink of Texas pioneers. It was a mixture of honey and water, boiled, fermented, and then spiced to suit.

HOW DEAD HORSE CANYON GOT ITS NAME

By Victor J. Smith

This brief account of a name was secured from Mr. E. E. Townsend, sheriff of Brewster County. Shortly after 1880 General Geno, of the United States Army, and a party of surveyors were making their way down the Rio Grande when they entered the upper mouth of a rugged canyon. To proceed with their horses meant a detour of many miles via Fort Stockton. To continue travel directly meant that they must abandon horses and use the river for transportation. It was finally decided to proceed down the river on rafts. In order to prevent their mounts from falling into the hands of Indians and being used in forays against the whites, the exploring party shot all their horses, some thirty or forty head. To this day the rugged canyon through which the Rio Grande winds its way for several hundred miles above Del Rio is called Dead Horse Canyon.

HOW THE BRAZOS RIVER GOT ITS NAME

By J. Frank Dobie

The Spanish word brazo means arm. The word, like its English equivalent, has a wide pictorial use; thus the Spanish speak of un brazo (an arm) of the sea, and as applied to streams the word may mean fork or branch. The complete name of the great Texas river as given by the Spanish was Los Brazos de Dios—The Arms of God. The name is remarkable, and in attempting to explain its origin legend has been no less remarkable. Old histories have contributed to the legend. At last, the history of the naming of the stream is clear; yet the name itself has something of mystery that will always provoke speculation.

According to Miss Eleanor Claire Buckley, [122] when the Spaniards of the Aguayo Expedition in 1621 struck what is now called Little River, in Bell County, they called it “Espíritu Santo (Holy Ghost), having reached it on the eve of Pentecost. As will be remembered, the Brazos had, in 1690, been given the name of Espíritu Santo or Colorado by De León, who, however, had struck it before its branching (Diario, entry for May 14). In the next expedition, 1691, Massanet, though he knew that it had been called the Espíritu Santo, named it the San Francisco Solano (Diario, entry for July 24); while Terán, ‘though the natives called it the Colorado,’ named it the San Geronimo (Demarcación, entry for July 25). Espinosa and Ramón, in 1716, crossed Little River just above its junction with the Brazos. The former did not give it any name; the latter called it la Trinidad. Both of them called the Brazos proper la Trinidad, thinking doubtless that it was the river that De León had named thus in 1690 (Diario and Derrotero, entries for June 14). Rivera called it the ‘Colorado o de los Brazos de Dios’ (Diario, entry for August 30).” “It may be noted,” adds Dr. Bolton, “that the name los Brazos de Dios was applied to the Little River and to the main Brazos, and not to the main Brazos and the Little Brazos.”

But why the arms de Dios? asks legend. I have heard that Corpus Christi was named through belief that the sacred words would act as a protection against harm to the inhabitants of the place. Probably the old custom, still maintained in Catholic countries, of giving holy or sainted names had its origin in some such belief. Many other streams in Texas than the Brazos were given holy names; as, the Trinidad (Trinity), the Navidad (Nativity), and the Arroyo de las Benditas Animas (Creek of the Blessed Souls). Thrall says that the Trinidad and Navidad were so named because they were discovered on Trinity Sunday and Christmas day respectively. [123] He offers no authority.

The version of the Brazos legend to be quoted presently from Mollie E. Moore Davis’ Under the Man-Fig goes back at least a century to Austin’s colonists, who, in all likelihood, derived it from the Spanish. It is probably the source of all the other versions and seems to be by far the best known. Incidentally, it appears in a book replete with folk-lore—one of the half dozen best Texas novels. The scene of Under the Man-Fig is Columbia, on the Brazos River, in Brazoria County. Now, among the oldest inhabitants of Columbia is Mr. J. P. Underwood, whose mother was one of the “first three hundred” of Austin’s colonists. Acting upon a request, Mrs. V. M. Taylor of Angleton secured from Mr. Underwood his version of how the Brazos got its name. Mrs. Taylor writes:

“Hostile Indians were pursuing a body of Indians under the care of
the Catholics who were trying to reach the Tockanhono, ‘mighty
water of the Tejas.’ They reached it in time to gain the opposite
shore, but the hostiles trying to follow were swept away by a
mighty current. The joy of the padre and company was expressed by
their calling the Tockanhono (Indian name) ‘Los Brazos de Dios’—The
Arms of God. Mr. Underwood gave me the account as above, saying
that it is the true version of the origin of Los Brazos as he heard
it from old settlers of Austin’s colonies.”

It will be noted that Mr. Underwood says nothing of the “mission” that figures so largely in Mrs. Davis’ account. There was no Spanish mission on the Brazos; Nuestra Señora de la Luz was a mission on the not distant Trinity, and at it there was a miraculous escape, but from fire, not from water. [124] The mission is but ambiguously hinted in a song entitled “Los Brazos de Dios,” [125] written years ago by Mrs. Laura Bryan Parker, formerly of Houston, now of Washington City. Another poetic version, [126] printed in 1897, makes use of the mission, but the details of this poem seem to have been taken entirely from Mrs. Davis’ narrative. It may be, after all, that the mission is borrowed from the San Saba, and that the fifth and last version of the legend given in this compilation is the oldest of all versions.

It is to be observed that in its lower reaches the Brazos does not come down with a sudden sweep like a mountain canyon, a fact that would still further indicate a borrowing from some upland stream, such as the San Saba or higher Colorado.

But it is high time to get to Mrs. Davis’ complete, if somewhat belletristic, tale. [127]

I

THE MIRACULOUS ESCAPE

“The name of the river is Los Brazos de Dios, which is to say, The Arms of God.

“The bed of it is very deep; and the color of the water—when it creeps sluggishly along between its banks, so shallow in places that the blue heron may wade it without wetting his knees—is the color of tarnished brass. But when it comes roaring down from the far-away Redlands, a solid foam-crested wall, leaping upward a foot a minute, and spreading death and destruction into the outlying lowlands, then it is as red as spilled blood.

“On its banks, more than a century and a half ago, a handful of barefoot Franciscan friars, who had prayed and fought their way across the country from Mexico, founded the Presidio of St. Jago, and corralled within the boundary walls a flock of Yndios reducidos.

“There were the stately church, cloistered and towered and rose-windowed—a curious flower of architecture abloom in the savage wilderness—and the blockhouse with its narrow loopholes, and the hut into which the Indian women were thrust at night under lock and key.

“The mighty forest and open prairies around teemed with Yndios bravos, who hated the burly, cassocked, fighting monks, and their own Christianized tribesmen.

“These came, in number like the leaves of the live oak, to hurl themselves against the Presidio. And, after many days of hard fighting, the single friar who remained alive turned his eyes away from the demolished church, and, under cover of smoke from the burning blockhouse, led the remnant of Yndios reducidos (who because they had learned to pray had not forgotten how to fight) out of the enclosure by a little postern-gate, and down the steep bank to the yellow thread of the river below.

“Midway of the stream—thridding the ankle-deep water—they were, before the red devils above discovered their flight. The demoniac yell from a thousand throats pushed them like a battering ram up the opposite bank, whence, looking back, they saw the bed of the River Tockonhono swarming with their foes. Then the Yndios reducidos opened their lips and began to chant the death-song of the Nainis; and the friar, lifting his hand, commended their souls and his own to the God who gives and who takes away.

“But, lo, a miracle!

“Even as the waves of the Red Sea—opened by the rod of Moses for the passage of his people—closed upon Pharaoh and his host, so, with the hoarse roar of a wild beast springing upon his prey, the foam-crested wall of water fell upon the Yndios bravos, and not a warrior of them all came forth from the river bed but as a bruised and beaten corpse.

“So the friar, falling on his knees, gave thanks. And the river, which was the Tockonhono, became from that day Los Brazos de Dios, which is to say, The Arms of God.

“Such is the legend of the river.”

II

HOW PERISHING SEAMEN NAMED THE RIVER

The following account comes from Mrs. A. F. Shannon of Velasco, who was reared near the mouth of the Brazos. Velasco, be it remembered, was, in ancient days, a port of many ships—the rival of Galveston. Whether or not this legend is indigenous to the mouth of the Brazos cannot be asserted; however, it is but natural that in such a place the legend should be connected with the sea.

Now this is Mrs. Shannon’s version: “My uncle said that he always heard the story like this. A ship out in the Gulf was without water, and the crew were parched with thirst. Suddenly, one of them saw a muddy current reaching far out into the clear blue of the salt water. The ship followed the current to a wide river, which was on a great rise and so threw its muddy waters far out to sea. It must have been a Spanish ship. The crew drank the saving fresh water, and in gratitude named the unknown stream Los Brazos de Dios—the Arms of God.”

III

THE GREAT DROUTH AND THE WATERS AT WACO

The third legend is connected with the famous “Bowie,” or Los Almagres, Mine on the San Saba. Like many other legends, it came to me from West Burton of Austin. He got it from an old man named White, now living out in the Big Bend country, but formerly of Mason or thereabouts. According to Burton, White got the account, written on a parchment, from a grateful old Mexican whom he had befriended in a spell of sickness. The Mexican claimed to have secured the parchment from his grandfather, the date it bore being over one hundred and fifty years old. When the aged Mexican took sick on Mr. White’s place in Mason County, he was traveling through the country with a crude Mexican cart and two burros, looking for two dugouts somewhere between the old San Saba Mission or mines and the site of the Waco Indian village, which was located at about the present site of Waco. As the parchment reads, thirty-six (or it may be forty-six, Burton says) jack loads of silver bullion were buried in these two dugouts.

It was a time of terrible drouth. The drouth had lasted two years and the little colony of Spaniards at San Saba had gone on mining with their captive Indians and their peons until the Indians had deserted, the peons had died, and there was absolutely no water left in the river or springs. Each month the band of Spaniards hoped that the next new moon would bring rain, but no rain came, and they knew that in the nearly always dry region towards Mexico, the drouth must be even worse. So, instead of going south towards San Antonio as they would normally have gone, the Spaniards set out eastward toward the village of the Waco Indians. They had often heard of a great river flowing by the Wacos’ camp, and there they hoped to find water. They left not a soul or a hoof behind, but packed on the burros their little store of provisions and what bullion they had accumulated, well knowing that they could not return until the drouth was broken.

At Las Chanas (the Llano), they found a dry bed; the Colorado was as dry as the top of a rock. Arrived at the Lampasas Springs, they found a little water, a great deal of mud, and dead buffaloes covering the ground. They pulled some of the dead buffaloes out of the bog, got a little stinking water, and slowly moved on. But the burros were poor from want of grass and starved from want of water. To carry the heavy bullion much farther was impossible. The provisions had to be taken at any price. So two small dugouts were made in the side of a hill, the bullion was buried therein, and after the captain of the band had called on all to witness the marks of the place, the cavalcade moved on.

The trail on eastward was marked by dead beasts and dead men, but at last, depleted in numbers and wasted in fortune, the travelers arrived at the village of the Wacos. There they found a great river flowing clear and fresh, and when they had drunk and had seen their beasts drink, they knelt down to give God thanks, and the padre with them blessed the stream and called it Los Brazos de Dios—the Arms of God.

The Spanish built a kind of rude fort and waited. The drouth kept on for three more years. Los Brazos still flowed clear and sweet, and memories of the rich mines and the rich bullion left behind began to grow dim. But at last the drouth broke and the grass and weeds sprang from the earth with a great rush. The grass grew so quickly that a powerful and fierce tribe of Indians was down upon the Spaniards before they could leave. Their little settlement was annihilated. Only one man lived to get back to Mexico, and that years later when he was old and feeble; he was so broken that he had no desire ever again to come into the region of the terrible drouth. But a while before he died he wrote out on a piece of parchment the history of that search across the desert for water, the directions, as well as he could give them, to the buried bullion, and this account of the settlement and disaster on the river called Los Brazos de Dios. The hidden dugouts with their wealth have never been found, and history has forgot to record that tragic episode of the first Spanish settlement on the Brazos.

IV

A MIRACULOUS SWIM

The meager details of this legend were supplied by Mr. Charles B. Qualia, Instructor in Spanish at the University of Texas. He says in explanation: “I heard or read the story when I was a child—where or under what circumstances, I know not.”

A Franciscan, so the legend goes, was running for his life from some terrible pursuer. He came to the river, which was so swollen and turbulent that no human being could hope to swim across it. The waters were swirling around tree tops on the banks, and in the middle of the stream great drift trunks were sweeping by. Nevertheless, he plunged in and was miraculously enabled to reach the other side. After he had looked at his helpless pursuer standing far away on the opposite bank and after he had gazed steadily at the waters he had escaped, he kneeled, and, thanking God, said that his deliverance was by “los brazos de Dios.” After that time the phrase came to be applied to the river.

In some way this version may be connected with the “Legend of the Monk’s Leap” as told by Gustave Aimard, in his The Freebooters, A Story of the Texan War. [128] In this legend a pursued monk is helped over a gorge near Galveston by two angels. However, Aimard was one of the most brazen liars that ever lived, and he probably made up the legend as facilely as he made up history and geography.

V

ARMS AVENGING AND SAVING

The following account from Kennedy’s History of Texas [129] has been contributed by Mr. E. G. Little John. As I have suggested, it may, after all, be the original of the better known version quoted from Mrs. Davis. The endless confusion among the earlier Spanish regarding the nomenclature of rivers is fully set forth in the extract from Miss Buckley’s article on the Aguayo Expedition already quoted. Thrall makes the matter a little too simple perhaps when he says: “The Spaniards gave the name of Brazos de Dios to the Colorado, and Rio Colorado to the Brazos, but blundering geographers afterwards interchanged their names.” [130] A French map dated 1733, in the University of Texas archives, has the Brazos River marked the “Therese” and the San Marcos the “San Markos or Colorado.” Mr. Littlejohn’s “Indian legend” of a flood, which follows this legend, seems largely based on the early Spanish confusion of the Brazos and the Colorado.

“About thirty miles from the mouth of the San Saba, there was once a Spanish mission and fort, the destruction of which is thus recorded in Mexican tradition:

“Prosperity reigned at the post, which carried on an extensive trade with the Comanche Indians, and a large revenue was derived from certain silver mines in the vicinity. The mines occupied about one hundred laborers; the post was protected by an equal number of soldiers, and there were some women, who manufactured articles for the Indian trade. At a time when all the soldiers, save about a dozen, were absent on an expedition, the Comanches appeared, under pretense of traffic, and were admitted to the fort in great numbers. At a signal from the chief, the Indians drew weapons concealed under their buffalo robes, and massacred the small guard and the women. The laborers in the mines fled, and were butchered in detail. The priest alone escaped, and by a miracle. The holy man having fled to the Colorado River, the waters divided, permitted him to pass through, and closed upon the pursuing Indians, consigning them to a common grave. After great suffering, the priest reached the Spanish mission of San Juan, at that period the only settlement on the San Antonio River. The absent soldiers, returning in a few days to the fort, where lay the mingled bodies of their companions, found the banks of the Colorado covered with dead Indians, and as they could discern no marks of violence upon them, they pronounced it a retributive miracle, and named the river Brazos de Dios, or ‘the Arm [sic] of God.’ In the ignorance of after times, it received the name of Colorado, which previously distinguished the red and muddy stream now known as the Brazos. The preceding tradition is devoutly believed by the old Mexicans about San Antonio.”

HOW THE BRAZOS AND THE COLORADO ORIGINATED

By E. G. Littlejohn

[It is hardly necessary to point out that this is not an undiluted Indian legend, the names and other elements in it showing Spanish and even American influence. La Salle is said to have called what is now the Colorado “The River of Canes”; the Indians—and again we go back to Thrall [131] for authority—called it the “Pashohono.”—Editor.]

The following legend is an adaptation of “An Indian Legend of the Flood,” signed by Jas. Spillane, reprinted a number of years ago in the Galveston News from the Philadelphia Times.

Long, long ago, long before the coming of the white man, in all the country drained by the Brazos and the Colorado, there was but one great river. It was a mighty stream, the Caney (Old Caney). To the east lived and hunted the Caranchuas; to the west the Ripas, the Lipans, and the Tawakonies. The Wacos lived to the north. The Ripas were warlike and powerful. They made war on the Caranchuas and drove them far to the east, stealing their squaws, killing their young men, and forcing the remnant of the tribe to flee to the islands of the sea. Likewise the Lipans, the Tawakonies, and the Wacos were driven from their hunting grounds, and the Ripas were masters of the whole land.

The Great Spirit was angry with the Ripas. He sent a messenger to them telling them to restore the squaws that they had stolen, and the horses and cattle, and to make no more war upon his other children. But the Ripas would not listen. They thought themselves more powerful than the Great Spirit himself, and determined to make war upon him. They sought out the messenger with defiance in their hearts, to challenge the Great Spirit to battle. But no messenger could be found. They searched the woods, the prairies, the river, the sky, but he had left no trail.

Then a great fear fell upon them, and some of the chiefs wanted to make peace with the Great Spirit. They called their wise men together to take counsel as to what they should do to turn away the anger of the Great Spirit. And while they held talk the heavens opened, the rain fell, the thunder roared, and the sky seemed all afire. In the midst of the fire the messenger appeared, his face glowering, his hand raised in menace. The Ripas threw themselves on their faces and begged the Great Spirit for mercy. And still the rain poured, the lightning flashed, the thunder crashed, and the whole earth rocked and shook as with an ague. The water soon rose and covered the earth. Then the Ripas ran for the trees. The wind blew down the trees and many of the Ripas were killed or drowned. The water rose higher and higher, and the rain and the thunder and the lightning lasted for many days. And there was no earth; all was water.

Then the Great Spirit smiled. The Ripas were no more. The waters had swallowed them up. To the Caranchuas on the islands came the messenger. He told them of the fate of the Ripas. He bade them return to their homes.

When the Caranchuas returned, all was changed. Where had been the great river was now but a small stream, Caney. The great river was now two rivers, the white man’s Brazos on the east, the red man’s Colorado on the west. Between the rivers were the hunting grounds of the Caranchuas, the gift of the Great Spirit.

MISCELLANEOUS LEGENDS

THE WHITE STEED OF THE PRAIRIES

By W. P. Webb

The wild horses of the plains were descendants of the Spanish horses that escaped from the conquistadores of the sixteenth century. Under the favorable conditions these horses multiplied and spread from Mexico and Texas up the great plains corridor to Canada. They went in large herds, each led by a stallion. Now, this stallion was leader because he was the best horse in the herd. He led by fleetness of foot, by courage to fight, and by strength sufficient to kill or drive out every horse that disputed his supremacy. Not only did he lead the horses, but he actually herded them, controlled them, dominated them. By the very law of survival he had to be unusual. Not only did he have to be strong and fleet, but he had to be wise and wary as well, full of good horse sense.

When settlers began to push on to the plains of the West, and to capture and domesticate wild horses, it was quite natural for the leaders of these herds to captivate the imagination of the vaqueros and cowboys. The stallion leader of the herd was the object of desire of every man of the West. Where a man was little better than the horse he rode, he naturally desired a good horse above all else, save a saddle to house him under. Now, the leader of the herd was not only a good horse; he was the best horse, with all the endurance, speed and intelligence that were so dear to the riders of the plains. These qualities made him the object of desire of every plainsman, and the hero among them was the man who could take the stallion leader. But to take the leader today was not to destroy leadership. Tomorrow another stallion would lead the herd. There was always a leader. The individual horse might be captured, but the quality of leadership could never be caught—it resided in the herd because it was a part of it. Now, it was this quality of leadership that became the object of desire. But since this quality of leadership could never be captured, the desire for it was a desire for the unattainable, the impossible.

Out of these conditions and facts grew the legend of the White Steed of the Prairies, that superb horse, a super-horse that had all the desirable and unusual qualities, all the speed, all the endurance, all the beauty that imagination could give him. Since he had all these attributes, everybody wanted him, but nobody could take him. He was ubiquitous, ethereal, a mere ideal, a phantom of the plainsman’s mind, and he ranged from Canada to Mexico.

One of the best accounts of the White Steed of the Prairies, or the Pacing White Stallion, as he was sometimes called, was given by Kendall, [132] when writing of his experiences in Texas in 1841.

“Many were the stories,” he says, “told that night in camp, by some of the old hunters, of a large white horse that had often been seen in the vicinity of the Cross Timbers and near Red River. That many of these stories, like a majority of those told by gossiping campaigners, were either apocryphal or marvelously garnished, I have little doubt; but that such a horse has been seen, and that he possesses wonderful speed and great powers of endurance, there is no reason to disbelieve. As the camp stories ran, he has never been known to gallop or trot, but paces faster than any horse that has been sent out after him can run; and so game and untiring is the ‘White Steed of the Prairies,’ for he is well known to trappers and hunters by that name, that he has tired down no less than three race-nags, sent expressly to catch him, with a Mexican rider well trained to the business of taking wild horses. * * *

“The Mexican who was sent out to take the wild steed, although he mounted a fresh horse as the one he was riding became tired, was never near enough the noble animal to throw a slip-noose over his head, or even to drive him into a regular gallop. Some of the hunters go so far as to say that the white steed has been known to pace his mile in less than two minutes, and that he can keep up this rate of speed until he has tired down everything in pursuit. Large sums of money have been offered for his capture, and the attempt has been frequently made; but he still roams his native prairies in freedom, solitary and alone. The fact of his being always found with no other horse in company is accounted for, by an old hunter, on the ground that he is too proud to be seen with those of his class, being an animal far superior in form and action to any of his brothers. This I put down as a rank embellishment, although it is a fact that the more beautiful and highly formed mustangs are frequently seen alone.” [133]

Kendall’s account in the New Orleans Picayune inspired the poet to sing of this wonderful horse. The following, by J. Barber, appeared in The Democratic Review for April, 1843: [134]

THE WHITE STEED OF THE PRAIRIES

Mount, mount for the chase! let your lassos be strong,
And forget not sharp spur and tough buffalo thong;
For the quarry ye seek hath oft baffled, I ween,
Steeds swift as your own, backed by hunters as keen.

Fleet barb of the prairie, in vain they prepare
For thy neck, arched in beauty, the treacherous snare;
Thou wilt toss thy proud head, and with nostrils stretched wide,
Defy them again, as thou still hast defied.

Trained nags of the course, urged by rowel and rein,
Have cracked their strong thews in the pursuit in vain;
While a bow-shot in front, without straining a limb,
The wild courser careered as ’twere pastime to him.

Ye may know him at once, though a herd be in sight,
As he moves o’er the plain like a creature of light—
His mane streaming forth from his beautiful form
Like the drift from a wave that has burst in the storm.

Not the team of the Sun, as in fable portrayed,
Through the firmament rushing in glory arrayed,
Could match, in wild majesty, beauty and speed,
That tireless, magnificent, snowy-white steed.

Much gold for his guerdon, promotion and fame,
Wait the hunter who captures that fleet-footed game;
Let them bid for his freedom, unbridled, unshod,
He will roam till he dies through these pastures of God.

And ye think on his head your base halters to fling!
So ye shall—when yon Eagle has lent you his wing;
But no slave of the lash that your stables contain
Can e’er force to a gallop the steed of the Plain!

His fields have no fence save the mountain and sky;
His drink the snow-capped Cordilleras supply;
’Mid the grandeur of nature sole monarch is he,
And his gallant heart swells with the pride of the free.

The legend of the White Steed of the Prairies has almost died out. One can pick it up now only from the older generation, from those who have recollections of the open country when Texas was held together by rawhide and dominated by horsemen. When one of these early Texans was asked if he had heard of the Pacing White Stallion, he replied: “Yes, I have heard of him from the Canadian to the Llano.” But one finds little variation in these stories. There is no room for the White Steed of the Prairies in a country where horses are no longer wild and free. He is now all but a forgotten memory of a past unreality. [135]

THE LEGEND OF SAM BASS

By W. P. Webb

Sam Bass was born in Indiana—that was his native home,
And at the age of seventeen young Sam began to roam.
He first came out to Texas, a teamster for to be;
A kinder hearted fellow you scarcely ever see.

This bit of biography of the Texas bandit was probably the first poem the writer learned outside the home circle. He learned it at the age when it was a great privilege to be permitted to pad along in the freshly plowed furrow at the heels of the hired man, Dave. Not only was Dave the hired man, he was a neighbor’s boy, and such a good poker player that he developed later into a professional gambler. But at the time I write of Dave was my tutor in Texas history, poetry, and music, all of which revolved around Sam Bass. To me and to Dave, Sam Bass was an admirable young man who raced horses, robbed banks, held up trains, and led a life filled with other strange adventure. At length, this hero came to an untimely end through a villain named Murphy, “who gave poor Sam away.” It was a story calculated to capture the imagination of young men and small boys. All over Texas hired men were teaching small boys the legend of Sam Bass, a story which improved in the telling according to the ability of the teller.

Not only was the story thus told. Men of high station in life, the lawyers, judges, and oldtimers, congregated around the courthouse of this western county and told of how Sam rode through the country at night after one of his daring robberies. Once a posse organized to go out and take Sam Bass. The leader of the posse was a lawyer, a smart man, and he knew exactly where Sam could be found and how he could be taken. He bravely placed himself at the head of a group of heavily armed men; he assured them that they would take the bandit and share the liberal reward that had been set on his head. They rode away into the night, they approached the lair of the fugitive; they knew they had him—at least the leader knew it. But that was the trouble. Sam did not run; therefore, the posse could not pursue. Sam seemed too willing to be approached; that willingness was ominous. Sam was such a good shot, so handy with a gun. The posse paused, it halted, consulted with the leader. The leader’s voice had lost its assurance. The posse that had ridden up the hill now rode down again. Sam Bass could not be found! And until this day, when old-timers get together in that county some one is sure to tell the story of that hunt. The wag of the courthouse, a lawyer, reduced it to writing, and on such public occasions as picnics and barbecues, he will read the account of “How Bill Sebasco Took Sam Bass.” It was cleverly done and made as great hit with the public as did Dave’s rendition of the song and story to the small boy. In both cases all sympathy was with Sam Bass, all opinion against Murphy and Bill Sebasco.

Thus in West Texas, from the judge in the courthouse to the small boy in the furrow behind the hired man, was the story of Sam Bass told. What was taking place in this county was occurring, with proper variations, in every other county in the state, especially in those of the north and west. The legend of Sam Bass was in the process of becoming. Today it would fill a volume.

Few are the facts known relative to Sam Bass, but some of them are these: Samuel Bass was from Indiana. He was born July 21, 1851, came to Texas, raced horses, made his headquarters in Denton County, participated in some bank robberies and train holdups. He became the recognized leader of his band and enjoyed a wide reputation, which he achieved before he was twenty-seven years old. In the summer of 1878 he left Denton County with the intention of robbing a bank or train. With him were Murphy, the man who had arranged to sell him out to the officers of the law, also Seaborn Barnes and Frank Jackson. The plan was made to rob the Round Rock bank on Saturday, July 20, 1878. En route to Round Rock, Murphy sent a note to Major John B. Jones, adjutant general of Texas, giving their plan. The result was that when Bass reached Round Rock the town was full of Texas Rangers and other officers of the law. On Friday Bass with Jackson and Barnes went into Round Rock to look over the ground before their attempt to rob. While purchasing tobacco in a store adjoining the bank, they were accosted by officers of the law, and a battle ensued. Barnes was killed on the spot, along with an officer. Bass escaped with a mortal wound, was found next day in the woods, and died the following day, Sunday, July 21, 1878. On that day he was twenty-seven. Frank Jackson made good his escape and has never been heard from since.

From these facts, the legend of Sam Bass has grown. Legend and fact are inextricably mixed. I shall make no effort to separate the one from the other, but shall set all down, much as I heard it.

Bass died gamely, as he lived. He refused to give any of his comrades away, though he was rational until the end. “If a man knows any secrets,” he said, “he should die and go to hell with them in him.” Bass said that he had never killed a man, unless he killed the officer in Round Rock. Frank Jackson wanted to remain and help Bass, but the latter, knowing he was near the end, persuaded Jackson to leave him, and gave him his horse to ride.

Bass and his men had camped near some negro cabins at Round Rock, not far from the cemetery. Bass had an old negro woman, Aunt Mary Matson, to cook some biscuits for him and to grind some coffee. When she had done this, Bass gave her a dollar. He then asked, “Have you ever heard of Sam Bass?” She told him she had. “Well, you can tell them you saw Sam Bass,” he said, and went away.

His generosity was well known. He always paid for what he got from individuals. He was particularly considerate of poor people. He would give a poor woman a twenty-dollar gold piece for a dinner and take no change. He paid the farmers well for the horses he took from them, though sometimes he did not have time to see the farmer.

Sam Bass relics are scattered over the country, everywhere. Some say that he gave his gun to Frank Jackson. Others declare he surrendered it to the officers who found him. His belt with some cartridges in it is in the library of the University of Texas. A carpenter at Snyder has a horseshoe from Bass’s best race horse nailed to the top of his tool chest. Near Belton are some live oak trees that Bass is said to have shot his initials in while riding at full speed. Horns of steers supposed to have been killed by Bass sell over the country at fancy prices. In Montague County there is a legend of $30,000 of loot buried by Sam Bass. Again, he is supposed to have left treasure in the Llano country. At McNeill, near Austin, there is a cave in which Sam Bass hid when he was in retirement. There he kept his horses and from there he made his forays.

Finally, when Sam was dead, legend wrote an epitaph on his monument which is not there. The legendary epitaph reads:

“Would That He Were Good as He was Brave.” No such inscription can be deciphered on Bass’s monument. The monument has been badly mutilated by souvenir collectors, but the inscription remains.

Samuel Bass
Born
July 21, 1851
Died
July 21, 1878
Aged 27 Years

In the lower right hand corner of the block on which the inscription appears is the name of the maker, C. B. Pease, Mitchell, Indiana. The people of Round Rock say that the monument was erected by a member of his family about a year after Bass’s death.

More interesting than Bass’s rather pretentious monument is that of his comrade, Seaborn Barnes, who sleeps the long sleep by his side. A rough sandstone stands at the head of this grave. It has been chipped away until the name is gone. The inscription, however, remains along with the date of his death. Were there no legend of Sam Bass in Texas, this inscription would make one. It is written in language Bass would have loved; it has a certain impertinence to law abiding people in the nearby graves, a certain pride in the leader at whose heels Barnes died. The epitaph contains seven words. The spirit of the person who wrote the seven words of that epitaph is the spirit that has created the legend of Sam Bass in Texas.

He Was Right Bower to Sam Bass

THE HORN WORSHIPERS

By L. D. Bertillion

[From an ethnological point of view, the legend, or more properly myth, of “The Horn Worshipers” is the most interesting in this collection of legends. None of the scholars at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Society held in New York, December, 1923, knew any parallel for it among the aborigines of America.

However, horns have been significant among many primitive peoples. Many of the Plains Indians of America, notably the Sioux, wore buffalo horns, and if I mistake not the totem of one tribe was a head of buffalo horns. However, the buffalo horn was to the Plains Indian merely a symbol of the power that he admired, an emblem of the animal that he was so far dependent on for food and shelter. In the Asia Magazine for December, 1922, is a picture of a pair of ox-horns fastened over the entrance to a village near Rodosto, Turkey. The horns so fastened are said to bring good luck to those who pass under them.

The medicinal properties ascribed to horns among primitive peoples have a corollary interest here. In a letter accompanying his legend of “The Horn Worshipers,” Mr. Bertillion says: “As late as ten years ago I bought a beautiful pair of buck horns, several points of which I had to sharpen because they had been sawed off a half inch or more for the purpose of curing some disease, which, to the best of my memory, was measles, the cure being a dose of pulverized horn, about a teaspoonful.”

In the same letter, Mr. Bertillion encloses a clipping from a syndicated article appearing in the McKinney, Texas, Examiner, November 9, 1922, which tells of an Indian rhinoceros horn presented to Pope Gregory XIV in 1590 as a protection against poisoning. According to the article, “The horn given to the pope by the prior and brothers of the monastery of St. Mary of Guadalupe in Spain, was credited with sweating in the presence of poison, by the way of warning, and if powdered and taken internally, with acting as an antidote. The tip is missing. It was cut off in 1591 and administered to the pope in his last illness.”

I myself recall as a pioneer remedy for distemper in horses, the smoke of burning horn-chips and rags, funneled through a horn up the horse’s nostrils. The Mexicans sometimes used the same remedy for colds.

The underground palace of this legend of “The Horn Worshipers” is a feature common to the lore of many peoples. “The Aztecs,” says Lewis Spence, [136] “believed that the first men emerged from a palace known as Chicomoztoc (The Seven Caverns), located north of Mexico. Various writers have seen in these mystic recesses the fabulous ‘seven cities of Cibola’ and the Casas Grandes, ruins of extensive character in the valley of the River Gila, and so forth.” [137] Then Spence adds a comment on the number seven pertinent also to the legend of “The Horn Worshipers”: “The allusion to the magical number seven in the myth demonstrates that the entire story is purely imaginary and possesses no basis of fact.”

The legend of the underground palace has various forms even in Texas. There are rumors of an underground palace near Leander in Williamson County and of another on the Blanco River. Some such story is connected with the Devil’s Cave on the Devil’s River; with a vast underground passage that workmen are said to have discovered while excavating for the foundation of the second Austin dam; and with the Carlsbad Mammoth Cave, located on the Texas-New Mexico line in the Guadalupe Mountains.

Mr. Bertillion says that he knows a man who claims to have discovered about fifteen years ago a great house within a mountain in West Texas, perhaps a hundred and fifty feet below the surface. This man was out with a surveyor. Searching for a place to set up the flagpole, he discovered a small hole in a rock, “not larger than an ordinary apple.” Secretly, he flashed sunlight into the hole by means of a pocket mirror, and down in a great cave he beheld a wonderful edifice. The details he has kept secret, for he intends to return to the place some day and make his fortune.

Back in the sixties, according to his own account, a Mexican living in Fort Stockton (1911) was carrying the mail between Fort Davis and El Paso. On one trip a band of Indians led by some renegade Mexicans confiscated his mail and express, burned the mail coach, and took him and his horses into an unknown region afterward identified as the Guadalupe Mountains. There, high up on a barren peak, he discovered some giant mahogany logs, “so big that there never has been a car on the Southern Pacific Railroad that could have hauled one of them.” Query: For what else than the palace of the Horn Worshipers could these mighty logs have been transported to that region?

Finally, the palace of the Horn Worshipers inevitably suggests the great legend of the Cave of Montezuma, a version of which follows this.—Editor.]

I am a great lover of horns and have collected and sold many fine pairs. In order to make my collections I have had to keep constantly inquiring for specimens. On one such expedition, a good many years ago, down on the border, I met a very old Yaqui Mexican, by the name of Pedro Osabia, as I remember.

When I made inquiry after long-horned cattle, he told me that the long-horned cattle were all dead and that their worshipers were all dead, but that the spirits of the Horn Worshipers never die, but enter into new men when the bodies they inhabit decay. He said that if I continued strong in the worship, some day I would find plenty of long horns.

Further interrogation brought out the story that long years ago—more years than man can count—this whole world belonged to one man, and that this one man lived in a grand temple, such as men do not know how to build any more, and that this temple is located inside one of the great peaks of the Jeff Davis Mountains. This Ruler of the whole world had his subjects scattered over all the earth wherever caves could be found or made in cliffs. And every seven years these subjects journeyed from their caves and their cliffs to the Great Palace to worship, each worshiper bringing the longest horns he had collected from any animal during the seven years. Then the horns were hung in the great hall of horn worship, and the Supreme Ruler stood amidst the horns as judge. The man bringing the longest horns received the first blessing and was not subject to the laws of the great Ruler for seven years, and those bringing the second and the third longest horns received second and third blessings and were immune from the laws for five and for three years. Furthermore, those who willfully refused to bring horns to the general worship were made servants of those bringing the longest horns to the shrine, and would eventually become dead in soul, thus losing the power to rise after death and enjoy the great horn worship in the wide, free spaces and the open air, where search for food would no longer be a necessity.

Finally, though, a great bird came and flew to the cliffs, and destroyed the dwellers throughout the world, and then, when none came to worship at the great palace, the great Ruler died of grief. Our present race is the offspring from a man who had been banished from some colony for his refusal to contribute horns and to join in their worship. Consequently, the great bird on his flight of destruction missed this outcast, who, having lost his blessing through neglect to worship, was doomed, he and all his generations, to work for a living.

Before he died of his grief the great Owner of the world, knowing that some day the mountain would decay and the deserted palace be exposed, placed a magic wand in the greatest horn in the great horn room. It is there now, waiting for the hand of some one of the soulless to touch it. Finally when the horn is touched, it will rise into space and draw all those who worshiped in full faith to the great horn worship above, where manual labor and death shall be forever unknown.

Such is the story of the first world of men, who were probably the Cliff Dwellers, or the Horn Worshipers!

THE CAVE OF MONTEZUMA

By Leeper Gay

[This legendary “Cave of Montezuma” is in Mexico, but so persistent and numerous are rumors of it across the border in Texas that I do not hesitate to include it among Texas legends. Mr. Gay knows many legends, and he has told me that he has often heard Texans mention Montezuma’s Cave; I myself have heard of it from treasure hunters in Texas. Indeed, legend has placed an Aztec cave, presumably Montezuma’s, in Texas. I am indebted to Mr. W. D. Notley, superintendent of public schools at Del Rio, for the following account:

On the south edge of Del Rio there is a mound of considerable size called Sugar Loaf. Legend has it that it was built by the Aztecs and stored with treasures. In the troublesome times that followed the conquest by the Spanish, the Aztecs built an acequia (irrigation ditch) around it, or alongside it, so as to cut off entrance through the subterranean passage that once led to the great storehouse.—Editor.]

I have at last learned one complete version of the legend of the Montezuma Cave. It cost me seven hours’ hard work, a delay of twenty-four hours in getting home, a deal of cheap drink, a headache, and the suspicion of my relatives; but the man who told me the story was alone worth the price. He is a broken-down newspaper man, “whose story is the story of every man that ever went down into Mexico. It is the story of a coward, the story of a man with a yellow streak down his back.” I was sitting on the plaza at Juarez, absorbed in a religious dance of the Festival, which was being held in front of the cathedral by people dressed as Indians, when Alec Martin came strolling along and sat down beside me. He was a colorless blond, white-faced, and rather small of figure, his neat dress falling into untidiness. His pale blue eyes were supplemented with powerful shell-rimmed spectacles, and as they continued to watch the dancers, I asked him how he liked the dancing. “But you should see the Festival of la Cruz Verde, at Tepic,” he replied without turning his head. From this auspicious beginning, we drifted into conversation, and he told me the legend of the Cathedral de la Cruz Verde. It is a simple story, such as, he explained, overruns Mexico. Observing that he wore no overcoat, although the day was cold, and that he shivered at frequent intervals, I suggested a hot Tom and Jerry. He was not slow in accepting, and since I had begun to find his company excellent, I suggested another, and then a glass of Bordeaux as a lid. He seemed quite shame-faced about not paying for the drinks, and somehow I believed him when he told me that, whatever he was at present, he had been a gentleman at one time.