Chapter III: Part 3

Then Dubose went to Victoria to consult a famous mulatto fortune teller. The fortune teller described Fort Ramirez satisfactorily and said that he could and would locate a buried chest of money near the place for $500. The agreement was made, and one dark night Dubose drove the mulatto to the fort. The fortune teller led at once to the north corner and, walking thence east a few paces, planted his foot down and said: “Here it is. With this spot as the center, dig a round hole ten feet in diameter.” The two went back to Wade’s Switch that night, and when they got there the negro demanded his $500. Dubose told him that he would have to wait until the money was dug up, and offered to allow him to be present at the ceremony, but he refused to stay. He declared that unless he was paid his fee at once, “spirits would move the box” and that it would be useless for anyone to try to find it.

He was not paid at once, but in spite of the threatened futility of digging, a few days later two white men, aided by two or three Mexican laborers, were digging a great hole circumscribing the point marked by the fortune teller. When they had got down six or seven feet, they came upon a loose soil that was different in color from the contiguous earth. It appeared to be “the filling” in some old hole. Hopes became feverish, but after about a barrel of the extraneous earth had been removed, the foreign matter petered out, and at the depth of twelve feet the men quit digging.

II

The legend that I grew up knowing was that the “fort” had been the ranch of a Mexican or Spaniard named Ramirez who became immensely wealthy raising sheep. He is supposed to have lived there more than a hundred years ago. Ramirez had a tunnel connecting his house with the creek. One time the Indians surrounded him. After withstanding the siege for days until he saw that he must leave or starve, he buried his money somewhere within the rock walls, and left by the tunnel. He was cautious and left in the night, but the next day he was captured, together with his small household, and all were put to death, leaving the place of his hidden thousands a secret.

Some people will tell you that it is useless to hunt for the treasure any longer. They say that fifty years ago Tol McNeill, who owns a fair-sized ranch adjoining the pasture in which the fort is situated, found $40,000 there and with the money bought and stocked his land. But I am sure that hunters for riches around the place are increasing in number.

Years ago I remember that a white man with a Mexican beside him drove up to our house in a buckboard. He had come from Runge, seventy miles northeast. He told my father what he was after and asked permission to dig at the fort, which was readily granted. His Mexican claimed to have been digging at the south wall some ten years before when all of a sudden, just as he was sure that his telache had struck the lid of a chest, he heard an unearthly yell behind him. He did have enough presence of mind to kick a few clods back into the hole, which was a small one; but he had been too much frightened ever to return to the scene or even to tell anyone of his experience before he found the patrón that was with him now. I guided the buckboard through the prickly pear to the fort; when the Mexican got there he appeared never to have seen it before.

A field was put in near the place and a Mexican jacal built about half a mile down the creek. The Mexicans living there tell of seeing lights play around the hill at night, and to them, as to folk of other races, the lights are a sign of precious metal under the ground.

Last summer a Mexican, named Genardo del Bosque, who has been on the ranch for a quarter of a century, gave me considerable information about “la casa de Ramirez.” Antonio de la Fuente, now dead, came to the country years and years ago as a child with his parents. They had a little money and as land was then very cheap and as the old fort was yet in tolerable condition, the walls all standing, and all that it needed to make it habitable being a roof of thatched beargrass, they considered buying it. One day while they were approaching it, a white lion, or perhaps it was a white panther, leaped out, and when they came within Antonio saw many and various coins on the walls and on the floor. But he was afraid and so were his parents to touch the coins, and of course they would no longer consider a purchase. The white animal was the soul of the dead owner of the treasure there to watch over it.

However, it is rather strange that Antonio and his parents took none of the money, for a white object (un bulto blanco) is a good spirit, and a white cat, a white calf, a white dog, or a white mule, or a woman dressed all in white may appear to people to lead them to buried treasure. But if un bulto negro appears, let them look out! The established Spanish custom in old times was to bury the treasure first and then over it a dead man. If this dead guardian was not the owner, then often the spirits of the two are in conflict. Hence, if a man digs close to the treasure, he is usually frightened away by outlandish noises heard behind him. The noises are generally as of many chains (cadenas) rattling and clanking. Since Antonio saw the white panther so long ago, no strange animals have been observed near the fort, only lights, lights, always between the fort and the creek, never at the fort itself.

THE LEGEND OF CASA BLANCA

Old Casa Blanca, which is several miles from the railroad switch by that name, is on the Nueces River in what is now Jim Wells, but was a part of Nueces, County. “Of the history of this old ruin,” says Mrs. Sutherland, [61] “no one knows a word.” The record of it is preserved in legend alone, and of legends there are many. Mrs. Sutherland links the place with a certain purported silver mine and recalls a tale of “a find” made there in 1868.

In its past, Casa Blanca was both Spanish fort and mission. So runs the legend told by Mr. E. M. Dubose. After the priests left it, it was occupied by a Mexican sheepman who prospered mightily. Finally he sold out his sheep and land for cash, but stayed on a while at Casa Blanca to wind up his affairs. Now the fact that he had thousands and that he kept them within the walls of the building was corroborated to Mr. Dubose by a man named Reems, who once lived in Pearsall. Reems stayed with the old sheepman three or four days just before the latter was killed and got a hint as to the location of the money. After the murder, he returned to Casa Blanca and found a worn hole in the very spot that he had “figured out” to be the hiding place.

Not long after it became known that the sheepman had acquired his cash, some Mexicans captured him and tortured him until he told where the money was, whereupon they put an end to his life. At this juncture, they found that they were being spied on by a second set of robbers. Under the concealment of night they hid their booty in a kind of rock pen near the fort, throwing the body of the murdered sheepman on top of it. They spent the night under protection of the walls, hoping to fight their way out the next morning.

The battle began at daybreak. The besiegers far outnumbered the besieged, and in desperation the latter scattered into the brush. There one of them named Carbal was cut off, and as he fell from a deadly shot he saw his own younger brother bend over him. It was the brother whom years ago he had taught the first lessons of outlaw life, and now that brother in ironic ignorance had paid for the lesson. Carbal understood the ignorance and with his dying words told where the loot was hid. Even as he told, the last of his companions was killed.

But the victorious desperadoes were never to reap the golden harvest of their victory. In the fight they had suffered losses, and now upon their heels came the terrible Texas Rangers. Retreating towards the Rio Grande, they were all “naturalized” [62] on Texas soil but one or two who managed to reach the security of Mexico. From that one or two has come down to us, in confused form, the story of the rich sheepman, his lost money, and the blood spilled over it. Ed Dubose got the story, together with a chart, from an old Mexican whom he made drunk on tequilla. Later he tried to find the “kind of rock pen” near Casa Blanca, but could locate no trace of it.

LUTZER’S FIND AT FORT PLANTICLAN

About fifteen miles below Casa Blanca, in Nueces County, not very far from the Nueces River, and near a huisache lake, are the remains of what is known as the Planticlan Fort. In a great Indian uprising the Spanish were forced to evacuate it, and when they did, they left everything but their guns, including three jack loads of silver bullion. The retreating Spanish were taken by the Indians and butchered, with the exception of one man who survived long enough to reach his people and tell them about the abandoned treasure on the Nueces.

More than half a century ago three Mexicans came with a chart to seek that hidden silver. After digging an immense hole, they found it, and there on the brink of the excavation they were polishing some of the blackened silver bars when Nick Lutzer happened upon them. (Lutzer is not the real name.) He was riding after cattle and, hearing low voices in the brush, he at once suspected cow thieves. He dismounted and, rifle in hand, crept through the bushes. He had often heard of the riches supposed to lie in the neighborhood, and so he was not surprised at the sight that greeted his eyes. The Mexicans were too intent on their business to sense his presence. Lutzer was a true and quick shot. He killed two of the Mexicans with his rifle and then drew his six-shooter in deadly fire on the other. In a minute he rolled all three of the dead men into the freshly dug pit and covered them.

Later he went to New Orleans, sold the silver ore, and came back and bought and stocked an immense ranch, which still goes by the name of the Lutzer Ranch.

TREASURE CHEST ON THE NUECES

By Mary A. Sutherland

Riverside Ranch is in Nueces County on the Nueces River. Fifty years ago while the owner was putting up a house near a ford, said to have been used by Indians of the most remote times, a Mexican with three pack burros came into camp. He and his beasts were travel worn and he asked permission to camp and rest his stock. The permission was readily granted, and true to class the Mexican hobbled his burros and then lay up in the sun and took life easy for several days.

Then the men working on the house noticed that he was apparently hunting after various herbs and plants and making a close study of the ground. After he had investigated for about two weeks in his solitary manner, the Mexican seemed very much depressed. One night he came to the camp of the Texans and asked for the owner of the land. Then he told his story. He and his burros had come over the long trail from the interior of Mexico to seek a buried chest of treasure. His trail had ended; he had not found the treasure. The history of that treasure he gave thus:

“When my father was a boy, he left home to go with a party of Spaniards to the seacoast. They had three big wagons and a grand carriage, the carriage for the captain, one wagon for the cook, and two wagons for the guard. They started at midnight from a mine belonging to the captain, and as they set forth they made a great show to the stars. They traveled to and across the Rio Grande without trouble, and then, señor, the sands, [63] the terrible desert. They were days getting across, and then, with the tough Spanish mules worn to the bone, they camped in the nearest spot where there was water.

“They prepared to rest for a week, but in the night the Indians charged, killed one man, and got off with two mules. The party started again at dawn, the Indians following. The Spanish captain decided to leave one wagon; so he took out the heavy boxes and put them in the carriage with himself. Thus the pobrecitos traveled till they came to the Nueces, on this very trail, and here on this bank they camped. That night they got out the heavy boxes, and the captain and three men dug a great hole and buried them, while the rest of the party stood guard.

“At dawn they crossed the river at the ford, hoping somehow to escape and make it back to Mexico for more guards. Five days later the Indians came on with a great whoop and every soul was killed except the boy, my father. He slid out into the tall grass, and after many months got back home. Now he is muy, muy viejo (very, very old), and he has sent me to get as much of the gold as I could pack on three burros. They buried the gold, he says, at the foot of a tree and put some stones above it. But the tree is gone and there are stones everywhere. I go tomorrow. If you find the Spanish gold, it is yours. Adios!”

Needless to say, for a few days the woods were full of treasure hunters, but so far as is known not one was successful. Yet the story that there is a chest of gold buried on Riverside Ranch has held from those early days to this time.

THE BATTLEFIELDS OF PALO ALTO AND RESACA DE LA PALMA IN LEGEND

By J. Frank Dobie

The Battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma were fought May 8 and 9, respectively, 1846. The battlefield of the latter is about three miles from old Fort Brown on the Rio Grande.

I

According to John Lewis, who was boss on the Collins Ranch, in Cameron County, on which is the site of the battle of Palo Alto, seven cartloads of pay money for the Mexican army were buried on the battlefield. In proof of the claim, he found a part of an old-fashioned Mexican cart while he was digging on Agua Dulce Creek, which runs close to the battlefield.

A Mexican named Santiago in Austin claims that one of his ancestors helped bury seven cartloads of army money on Palo Alto battlefield. Taylor’s army was pressing the Mexicans. To save time the Mexicans had to lighten baggage. The officer in charge of the pay-carts had orders to bury the money. He told off his detail and ordered them to dig a trench by a gully or little creek lined with mesquite brush. When the trench was made, the officer ordered the money transferred to it from the carts. While the last cartload was being put in the trench, Santiago’s ancestor ran, for he knew that the men who made the trench would have to follow the treasure. He had no more than got out of sight in the mesquites when he heard shots that told very plainly he had acted prudently in leaving.

II

This account was given to me by Mr. Bob Nutt of Sabinal, who got it from an old ferryman named Ramón down on the Rio Grande. Ramón claimed to have been ferryman when the Mexican troops crossed over into Texas at the beginning of the war between the United States and Mexico.

“It took me three days to get the army over,” Ramón would tell, “crossing and crossing back, day and night. And, oh señor, I had muchas ganas (many desires) to go with the troops. There was música, oh, so lively, and there were the banderas (flags) all bright in the air, and the men were all happy and singing. But I did not go, and in three days more here they were back, but without any música or banderas and not needing any ferry boat. They came in flocks, running and crawling like tortugas (turtles), and they fell into the water flat on all fours like tortugas and never stopped till they were into Mexico.

“They had been at the fight of what we call La Resaca de La Palma, and I was very glad that I had not been with them. They did not have time even to bring back the señor general’s chest of money or any of the silver platas that he ate out of. There was a great bulto of it, and it was left in La Resaca de La Palma. There three tall palms make a triangle and in the middle of that triangle it is buried. They dug a hole and put the chest and the silverware and a golden cross in it, and then filled up the hole and made a great fire on top of it so that it would look as if some military stores had been burned. And then they came back here into the river like so many tortugas and los Americanos were so bravos that no one of those who helped hide away the tesoro ever would go back to it. Besides, most of them were killed at Monterrey.”

HOW DOLLARS TURNED INTO BUMBLE BEES AND OTHER LEGENDS

By J. Frank Dobie

This group of legends came to me from an old darkey named Pete Staples. In them may be seen the blended elements of negro, Mexican, and pioneer Texan lore. Pete was brought to Texas from Mississippi before the Civil War. He was raised in the border country among the Mexicans and drove cattle up the trail to Kansas. He married a Mexican woman and lived for some time in Mexico. When he told me these stories in 1922 he was cooking for a Mexican cow camp in Live Oak County. The other hands had “unrolled their blankets” early, and Pete’s tones were confidential as we talked by the burnt-out campfire.

I

“One time there was a white man who had got wind of a lot of Mexican dollars buried down below Roma. He had the place all located, and was so sure of hisself that he brung in an outfit of mules and scrapers to dig away the dirt. He was making a reg’lar tank digging down to that money when a Mexican living down there what I’ve knowed all my life comed along.

“This Mexican, when he come along clost to the tank that the white man was digging, stopped a minute under a mesquite tree to sorter cool off, and when he did he saw a hoe laying down on the ground half covered up in the dirt. He reached down to pick it up and then he saw a whole maleta of coins. A maleta, you know, is a kind of bag made out of hide. This maleta was old and rotten, and when he turned it over with the hoe it broke open and the gold money jest rolled out in the dirt.

“D’reckly, the Mexican went over to where the white man was bossing the teams, and he asked him what he was doing. The white man told him that he was digging up some buried money.

“‘Well, you’s digging where it ain’t no use to dig,’ said the Mexican. ‘The money ain’t there; hit’s over here. If you want to see it, come along and I’ll show it to you.’

“The white man laughed like he didn’t believe what the Mexican was telling him, but he come along. When they got to the mesquite there wa’n’t no money in sight, but there was a hole down at the root of the tree kinder like a badger hole and bumble bees was going in and out making a roaring sound and the dirt was fairly alive with great big bugs, maybe tumble bugs, only they was humming and making a sizzling noise and working around awful like.

“‘Huh, is this what you call money?’ says the white man, stamping down on the tumble bugs. ‘I’ll eat all the gold what they roll up.’

“‘That’s all right,’ says the Mexican. ‘There was dollars of gold and silver too here. But there ain’t now, I admit, ’cause them dollars’s evidently not intinded for you. White man didn’t hide that money and it ain’t meant for white man to find it. No matter how much you dig or where now, you won’t find nothing.’

“Shore enough, the man kept on digging and he didn’t get nothing. One time I asked the Mexican why he didn’t go back and take out the money.

“‘I didn’t want none of it,’ he said. ‘I never put it in the ground. ’Twa’n’t mine any more’n that white man’s.’

“A few days after he saw the money, though, he went back and scratched around in the dirt a little and picked up an old Mexican square dollar. He brung it to Roma and bought some flour and some coffee and some candy, and give some of the candy to my wife. She was living down there and knowed the man well and she’s told me many a time how she et some of the candy that the Mexican bought with that old square Mexican dollar. I always have thought that that money was intinded for him, but you know how some people are, and I can’t say as I blame him for not teching what he hadn’t a right to. If buried money like that is intinded for a human, he’ll come by it jest easy and nach’ral. If it’s not, he won’t come by it, no matter how much he hunts. Even if he did find it and it wa’n’t intinded for him, it ud prove a curse. I’d be afraid of it myself.”

II

“One time over in East Texas two young fellers was going along when they met a man. He looked perfeckly nach’ral, and they was clost to a tree.

“‘Dig there,’ said the man to them, like he knowed that they was looking for something, which they was. ‘Dig there,’ was all he said, and when he said that he pointed to the root of the tree.

“They swung down their grubbing hoes and hadn’t more’n scraped the crust off’n the ground when a great big bulldog come right out of the earth. He jest fairly appeared like out of nowhere, ’cept that he come out of the ground. He was monstrous big and sorter white looking, but he didn’t growl nor nothing. And those fellers never even went back to get their grubbing hoes.”

III

“Something like the same thing happened down at the old Carmel place below Lagarto. You know it’s only about two or three miles north of Casa Blanca, what they tell so much about. I don’t know what the truth is about that Carmel place, but as sure as you’re bawn, things has happened there. Some says that Spanish priests buried money there what they was trying to get back to Mexico with. And Mr. Ed Dubose, once when I was cooking for him and some other gentlemens that was looking for buried money, said that he saw the print of an iron box in a hole close by. The rust was still on the ground all ’round the hole where the box used to be, and they was jest a day late getting down there. Some other feller had beat ’em to it—but it’s a good thing, I speck. There’s an old grave made out of rock and cement at that Carmel place.

“Some says that there’s a mine for silver or gold down there too what the Spanish used to work, but now it’s hid so nobody can’t find it.

“Some says that there was a man drug to death what was traveling through with both saddlebags full of money. He was sleeping on his saddle for a piller and the Mexicans supprised him and roped him and drug him to death. Old Captain Cox used to have a house close down there, you know, and sometimes he’d wake up in the middle of the night hearing what sounded like a wagon rumbling. He’d get up and go to the door and couldn’t hear nothing. Then maybe he’d hear d’reckly sounds like somebody galloping on horses and dragging an old dry cowhide. Sometimes this dragging and rumbling would go on all night so he couldn’t sleep. Some Mexican cotton-pickers that was camped there heard that hide being drug all around their camp one night, and next day they left.

“Old man Miller was always projecking round trying to get his hands on that money. He tried to get his pastor what kept a herd of goats down on the south side of the ranch next to the Carmel place to look out for signs. One time that pastor discovered that he’d lost a big billy goat outen his herd. He set out to look for him, and he tramped around for three days before he comed across ary a track. Then one evening nigh about sundown he saw the old billy goat standing off on one side of a ravine and nibbling grass jest as nach’ral as life. He set out to where the goat was, but when he got there, there wa’n’t nothing but two dead hackberry trees. It was a nach’ral clearing and there wa’n’t no other hackberry trees in a mile. He said he knowed those trees was not there when he started. And he couldn’t find not even a sign of the billy goat, not even a track.”

IV [64]

“Down there sommers below Realitos there’s an old dug well with six jack loads of Mexican silver in it, and nobody ain’t never going to get it neither. How it come there was this way. Six Mexicans was making for the Rio Grande with it when they was overtaken and killed. But the bandits that killed them was being followed likewise and didn’t have time to get away with the silver. The fight had been right by this old well, and what the bandits did was to shoot the jacks that was not shot already and to pitch dead Mexicans, jacks, silver and all right into the well. In the fight that followed, the bandits was cleared out. The men after them was rangers, I guess. Anyway, one of them found out somehow about the six jack loads of silver.

“Well, when everything had quieted down like, he went and bought the land on which the well was placed and set a bunch of Mexicans to clean it out. Of course, the well had got filled up with dirt and so on from caving in. After they’d dug a while the Mexicans struck bones. They hollered up to the white man that they had struck bones and that all they lacked now was to pull up the goods. The white man, he hollered down to them that they needn’t do any more digging and for them to come on up so as to let him down. Nach’rally, being as they had struck them bones, the Mexicans wasn’t very slow about getting out.

“When the white man got down there, the first thing he done was to grab hold of a corner of an old maleta what he seen sticking out among the bones. He jerked it out and it had the dollars in it all right. Then he looked up and yelled to the Mexicans to pull. He hadn’t more’n got the words outen his mouth when he seen a tall skileton standing alongside the wall of that well. Its feet was close to him and it must have been twenty, maybe forty, feet tall. It reached clear up to the top, and its face away up there was a-looking down at the white man. He couldn’t take his eyes offen it, and all the way up while those Mexicans was a-pulling him slow and jerky he had to look that skileton in the face. He forgot all about that maleta of money and dropped it back, and when he clumb out he was so weak that they had to help him on his horse. They managed to get him home and put him in bed, and that night he died. And there ain’t nobody what I know of as has undertook to get out them six jack loads of silver since.”

NATIVE TREASURE TALK UP THE FRIO

By Fannie Ratchford

His name was Zeno, but he answered with equal indifference and slowness to Bruno, Juno, and Zero. He was a goat-herder who had been hired to help with the fall shearing, and though he was not more than fourteen years of age, long following after flocks of goats along dusty roads had given him the slow, shambling gait of an old man and fixed on his small, wizened face an expression not unlike that of the patriarchs of the flocks he drove.

One night at the supper table my cousin expressed disgust that a certain Mexican, upon whom he had been depending for help with the shearing, had seen some sort of supernatural light on the mountains, and had betaken himself off to hunt for the buried treasure that such a light indicates. As the conversation turned upon the subject of this superstition, I saw Zeno’s face light up with an expression of interest and intelligence altogether new to it. But he said nothing. Indeed, I think, up to that time I had never heard him speak.

After supper, when he and a small boy who lived on the ranch had withdrawn to the darkness of the lawn, I heard a thin, shrill, defiant voice saying, “That’s the truth, and anybody can laf that wants to.”

Scenting an interesting story, I joined the boys on the grass, and asked, “What’s true, Zeno? Tell me the story that you were telling Wayne.”

“’Tain’t no story, hit’s the gospel truth, and if you’ll take me up there, I’ll show yer,” was the defiant answer.

After several more questions, I got this story. Near the head of the Frio River, between Leakey and Concan, there is a mountain with a rather steep, bald face. Anyone who has the temerity to linger in the vicinity until night begins to fall will see the tall, willowy figure of a woman all in white moving slowly down the mountain-side, carrying a lighted torch in one hand, while with the other she strikes about her with a rod or switch.

“Where does she come from,” I asked, “from behind the mountain or from out of the top?”

“She don’t come from nowhere,” was the indignant reply. “She just—just—”

“Just appears,” I suggested.

“Yeh, just ’pears,” Zeno agreed.

“But what is she striking at?” I persisted.

“At ever’thing, and if she hits yer, you don’t feel no lick. Yer just have a shivery feeling like a puff of cold, wet wind had struck yer.”

“What is she doing there?” I insisted. “Was there a murder committed there?”

“She’s a-watching all the money that’s buried in that there mountain, of course,” was the pitying reply. “Once on a time some Spaniards were going along there with a lot of money packed on mules, when the Indians came along, and they had a big fight, and they wus all killed, but first they had buried their money, and nobody hain’t ever been able to find it, ’cause they is always a spirit guarding it. Grandma Christmas, she can tell yer all about it; she’s ’most a hundred years old, and she’s lived up there ’most since the time of the fight.

“Paw and me, we found some arrerheads up there, and Paw, he’s seen the spirit with the light and ever’thing.”

“Has your father ever dug for the money?” I asked.

“No, he ain’t never dug on that mountain, but he’s dug in another place, I ain’t saying where, but not more’n a hundred miles from there,” he answered mysteriously.

“My uncle, he first seen a light in this here place where Paw dug—a funny sort of light that didn’ burn anything up—”

“Like Moses and the burning bush,” I suggested, but he ignored my interruption, and went on.

“—and he first shot through it with his pistol, and then he tried to touch it with his hand, but he never could get near enough to it. It always moved away as he went toward it.

“But anyway him and Paw found the right place to dig. They knowed it was the right place, ’cause they found two machete knives stuck way down in the ground. They found a funny sort of place, like a well all walled up with rocks that had been filled in with dirt, and had grass and everything all grown over it.

“Paw and my uncle taken time about digging and watching, and once when Paw was digging, he come to the bottom of the well. The bottom was covered with pieces of flat rock like pieces of pie with their points together in the middle. Paw started to prize one of these pieces up, when a bright light flashed right in his face, and he heard a terrible noise like a hundred men a-running on horses, and fighting, too. He got out of there quick as he could, but it took him a long time to catch up with my uncle, who had heard the noise first.

“No, he never did go back there, but he told another man, who did go, and found the place too, but the man what owned the place run him away.

“Not long after that, Paw went to a fortune teller, and he told him that they was a whole lot of money right there in that hole, an’ if he had just lifted the rock on the other side he would a found it, but it wouldn’t do him any good to go back, for the spirits were watching that money, and they wusn’t no man on the green earth that could get it until he could lay them spirits.”

Zeno was now thoroughly warmed up to his subject, and as soon as this last story had had time to soak in, he started again.

“They’s another place, too, up on the Frio where they’s money buried. Ever’body knows hit’s there, but nobody ain’t ever been able to find it. My uncle was hunting up there once, when he found a funny piece of old, old iron chain, and after a while he saw some rocks with the funniest kind of marks on them, that wusn’t put there by no white man, either. He come back to get Paw, and they hunted and hunted for the place, but they never could find the rocks ner the marks ner nothing. The fortune teller told Paw that the spirits always turned them away just when they were about to find the right place.”

“I am sorry you can’t tell me exactly where those places are, Zeno. Do you suppose your father could tell me?” I asked.

“He kin tell yer all right if he wants to,” was the canny answer. “He knows where just about all the money in Texas is buried, I guess.”

Needless to say, I took occasion to go to Paw’s place of business not long after, but found to my disappointment that Paw had gone to California to pick grapes.

THE SILVER LEDGE ON THE FRIO

By J. Frank Dobie

This legend and others were given me in the summer of 1922 by Mr. Whitley, a small ranchman of McMullen County. At that time, he was more than seventy years old, though he was still an eager and agile horseman. From his front gallery one could see the San Caja Mountain, which his land ran against. We began talking on the subject of buried treasure a little after dark, and it was long after midnight before he suggested that we “unroll our blankets.” When I think of the place, the time, the man, his tones—the whole environment in which these as well as other legends were told, I realize that the most faithful transcription of the words can give hardly more than a shadow of the original effect.

“When I was a young man I got to know an old, old Mexican at Refugio, who had been raised by the Indians. His name was Benito. They had captured him down in the Rio Grande country when he was a boy and taken him north with them. In those days the Indians were friendly with the Mexicans at San Antonio, and every year they would come down from the upper country and trade, but when they got in the vicinity of the San Antonio settlement they always hid their Mexican captive, keeping him back with the squaws.

“The main thing that these Indians brought in to trade off to the Mexicans and Spanish was silver and lead. Benito said he knew that they were getting it from somewhere about the head of the Frio, but for years did not know just where, for he was never allowed to go to the mine. The attempts of Mexican prospectors to get on to the whereabouts of the mineral made the Indians very particular. Finally, though, they trusted their captive with the location. He found that there was a vein of ore. It seemed to be a lead and silver compound almost solid. From it the Indians simply chopped off bars to be used in trading or in moulding bullets.

“Now, as old Benito used to tell, after he was grown he slipped away from the Indians, and with two or three Mexicans that he took in as partners went back and tried to get the ore himself. The Indians got on his trail, though, and killed his companions before the party ever got to the ore. He alone escaped, and for years and years he was afraid to go back.

“When I knew him he was over a hundred years old, I am pretty sure, and he would tell me often about the rich silver vein. I wanted to go in search of it, and he thought that he could make the trip in spite of his feebleness if we fixed it so that he could ride in a hack. He knew that he could find the mine if he ever got up the Frio Canyon, but he would not go unless a good-sized party went. He said that he would pick six Mexicans to go and that I could pick six white men.

“Well, we got everything about ready, wagons, provisions, and so forth, when the man in our party who was bearing most of the fitting-out expense up and took down sick. So we naturally had to put the trip off. The man got well, and a while after that we got ready to go again. But luck seemed to be against us, and the old Mexican guide was taken down. It was out of the question for him to go. He was dying. He gave us, though, the clearest directions he could and thought that we could follow them. From what he said, the vein of silver could not be got to horseback. It was in the south bank of one of three arroyos that ran into the Frio close together. At it the creek made a sharp turn, and a man would have to get down and go afoot along the bank. No doubt it was concealed, for the Indians always covered it up well after they had hacked off what they wanted. The old Mexican said that if he could only get one sight of the lay of the land, he could tell which one of the three arroyos the vein was in. But he never got that sight; so he gave the best way-bill he could and died.

“The treasure hunting party broke up and things rocked along for years without me doing anything. Meanwhile a brother-in-law of mine had moved into the upper Frio country. I decided to go up and visit him and my sister, and to find the ore at the same time. I took my dogs along, and the first thing we struck the very first morning that we rode out to look up those three creeks was a bear. Well, sir, I got to hunting bear, and we never did get to hunting that silver, and to this day I know good and well that if I had left my dogs at home, I’d a had it.

“I say I know, because my brother-in-law found it after I left. I gave him the directions and he agreed to notify me if he made the find. Well, he made it and was leaving his place to come down the country to tell me, when he was murdered in cold blood. But that is another matter. He had confided to his wife about finding the silver and told her the purpose of his trip, warning her not to tell anybody. Of course, after his death she told me all that she knew; he had never told her, though, where he had located the vein.

“You see I have known two living witnesses to that treasure. There is enough of it to make anybody rich. If I just had time, I believe that I could go and find it yet.”

LOST MINES NEAR SABINAL

By Edgar B. Kincaid

I

THE QUICKSILVER MINE OF THE RANGERS

When the Sabinal country was just settling up, a company of rangers camped for some time about four miles north of Sabinal on the Sabinal River. They often practiced shooting, and some of the men from ranches round about practiced with them. Then the rangers were ordered on.

Thirty or more years passed. One day one of the old rangers showed up in Sabinal in search of their former camp. He looked around for a while, took no one into his confidence, and quietly left. Within a short time he returned with another member of his all but forgotten company. They secured the help of some of the oldest settlers and definitely located the old camp site. Next, the former rangers drew up a contract with the owner of the land allowing them to mine quicksilver. Then they told their story.

When they were camped in the Sabinal country in the early seventies, one of the members of the company shot a ground squirrel on the edge of its hole. On picking up the dead squirrel, he bent so that he could see into the hole. The sun was shining at just the right angle to throw a light down it; it must not have been very deep. Anyway, what the ranger saw in the bottom of the hole was quicksilver. He got a can, dipped up some of it, and passed it around for his comrades to examine. Some of them rubbed their guns with it.

The old rangers started to work and dug many trenches about the former camp site, but they could never find a sign of what they were after. That site is near a great fault that has exposed millions of tons of igneous rock. It is said that quicksilver is sometimes found under just such conditions; but to this day the quicksilver once glimpsed by the rangers has not been found, and their story has passed into the tradition of the country.

II

LOST LEAD MINE

North of Sabinal in early days lived a ranchman named Hoffman. He had come from California, and he used to sell lead to occasional settlers who went to his cabin to buy it. One day Will and High Thompson, brothers, were helping Hoffman brand calves on his ranch, now known as the Nixon Ranch, when they said something about needing lead to mould into bullets. Hoffman said that he had plenty and that if they would keep on working he would get them all that they wanted. The Thompson boys kept on working; Hoffman rode away, and in about two hours returned with the lead. He said that he had got it out of his mine and that just as soon as he could sell his cattle he was going to work the mine. He did sell his cattle soon afterwards, but almost immediately was killed by the Indians.

The Thompson brothers then began to hunt for the mine. One day while they were searching, High called out to Will to come and see “this great, big, blue cow chip.” The cow chip proved to be lead. They were at the mine. Very shortly afterwards, Will, who was always leader, was killed either by Indians or by robbers. The mine was forgotten for a time, and the land passed into hands of people who would not allow any but their own kin to hunt for the lead.

In after years Henry Taylor, a brother-in-law of the land-owner, got High Thompson to try to locate the mine again. He made a location and sank several shafts, but never found any lead. The mine is still a lost mine, talked about by many and perhaps even searched for by some.

THE NIGGER GOLD MINE OF THE BIG BEND [65]

By J. Frank Dobie

Wherever men talk of the Bowie Mine, of the Rock Pens, of lost mines of the West, they tell of the Nigger Gold Mine. The site of Reagan Canyon varies from south of Dryden in Terrell County to a hundred and seventy-five miles west in Brewster County, in some accounts being identified with Maravillas Canyon. Likewise, the gold lead shifts from one side of the Rio Grande to the other. Mr. Carl Raht has put into print an account of the Nigger Gold Mine [66] but he has not stressed the legendary features. For material I am indebted to R. R. (“Railroad”) Smith of Jourdanton, who got his information from Tex O’Reilly and others who know Campbell, the railroad conductor; also to Edgar Kincaid of Sabinal and West Burton of Austin. I tell the legend as it is told, not as history would sift it.

The Reagan brothers were camped down close to the Rio Grande in the Big Bend country on a canyon that now bears their name. Reagan Canyon opens into the Rio Grande, affording an excellent passage for stock, and the Reagans used it to smuggle stolen cattle and horses back and forth between Mexico and the United States. Some say that they were in partnership with a gang of horse thieves that operated “a chain” all the way to the Arbuckle Mountains in Oklahoma.

One time when one of the Reagan boys was in Valentine he came across a negro tramp. He picked him up in his spring wagon and brought him back to camp and put him to work. Not long afterwards a horse got loose with a saddle on—some say with merely a drag-rope—and the men in camp scattered out to find him. When night came and the men returned, nobody had found the horse, but the negro rode in with a morral full of something heavy, and calling off one of the Reagan men, he said, “Mr. Reagan, jes’ looky here; I’se found a brass mine.”

“Damn your brass mine,” said Reagan as he scattered the contents of the morral with a kick. “I’m not feeding you to hunt brass mines. Why in the hell didn’t you find that horse? He’s got a new saddle on him worth three brass mines.”

With that the negro kept still, and next morning early all hands turned out again to hunt the lost horse. About six or seven miles out from camp the same Reagan brother who had kicked the morral met the negro circling towards him. They exchanged observations; neither had found any sign of the horse. “But, Mr. Ben,” went on the negro, “we’se right over here now clost to that brass mine. Lemme show you.”

It was along late in the afternoon and Reagan was fretted and hungry. “I told you once,” he blurted out, “that I didn’t care anything about your mine. What I want is that horse, and I’m a damn sight hungrier for some frijoles than I am for brass anyhow.”

The two horse hunters parted, and when the negro got into camp that night the cook called him off and told him that “Mr. Ben” was “on the warpath.” And here the story prongs. According to one version, the Reagans saw that they had antagonized the negro and that he was going to leave. Their pasture was full of stolen stock at the time and they did not want the negro to talk; so they forthwith shot him and pitched him into the Rio Grande. Mr. J. M. Kincaid of San Antonio, who years ago ranched in the Big Bend, says that this is a confusion of stories, that a negro was pitched into the Rio Grande all right, but that some train robbers drowned him because he would not go in with them as he had promised to do.

According to the more prevalent version, the negro culled a stray horse from the Reagan remuda—some say a fine Reagan stallion—and made back east or else into Mexico. After he was gone and the Reagans had cooled down, they began to think about the “brass” and picked up some of the ore that had spilled out of the morral. They saw that it was rich in gold. Then they tried to get the negro back, spending and offering large sums in the attempt. The negro heard of the efforts and hid out the farther. He thought that the white men were after him for taking the horse. The Reagan boys searched in every direction for the gold deposit, meantime continuing their stealing and smuggling. Later the Rangers came down into the Big Bend and broke up the gang. They killed one of the boys, one died, one went to Mexico, where he now lives with the Yaqui Indians.

But when he left, the negro had held on to his samples of ore. He knew that he had something valuable. He sent specimens to be assayed at El Paso and Denver. The analysis showed either ninety-two per cent gold or else $92,000 gold to the ton, the figures vary. No matter how rich the ore, however, he was afraid to go back into the Big Bend. He disappeared. Other people than the Reagans had heard of the negro and his “mine” and they set to searching for both. It is estimated by some men that fully $20,000 have been spent in trying to find the negro. Some say that he died in Louisiana; some, that he is still in Mexico. I know one man who claims to have known him in Monterrey a good many years ago. There the negro went by the name of Pablo, had a peculiar scar on his face, was a noted drinker and gambler, rode a fine horse often at full speed down the street, whooping and shooting. He always had plenty of money, and it was claimed that he loaded two pack horses every three months with ore from his secret mine.

But the real story of the Nigger Mine is forever linked with the name of Campbell. Campbell was a conductor on the Southern Pacific Railroad. He is yet living in San Antonio and may enjoy in life the legendary fame that only a few men attain to in death. Before the negro left Texas, he gave Campbell some of his ore. Campbell had it assayed, with the same rich results that the negro’s assays had shown. He quit work to go out and see the mine. Then he discovered that the negro had stolen a horse and run away. He tried to find the mine himself and failed. All that he knew was that it was within seven or eight miles of the old Reagan camp. He spread abroad offers of a high reward for information that would lead him to the negro. Thus the whole country came to know about the mine and to search for it.