Chapter V: Part 5

“‘Yes, that’s it,’ he says. ‘Not only that, but I have in my pocket another map giving the exact location of more gold, beginning with the ferry as a center. You see, the wagon that crossed the river carried a chest of money. The three men that were with it went on till they became afraid of being overtaken; then they buried it. They had a quarrel over it, and one of them shot another to shut him up. Then he and my grandfather took down some landmarks on a crude map, and pulled for Mexico. On the way the other Mexican died, leaving my grandfather with the map. He died before he could come back and get the money. My father was killed by bandits; so I was left with the one and original map of the buried treasure. With your help, your knowledge of the country around here, and so forth, we should be able to locate that chest and the cannon easy. Now, I propose to give you half of whatever we find. If we don’t find anything, you don’t get anything. What do you say?’

“You-all can easily guess that I jumped right on his offer. He showed me the other map, and I located the landmarks as near as I could on the map; we got our tools together, and started our treasure hunt. We looked for the cannon first, because I knew exactly where it should be. We dredged and dredged and fished and fished for that thing, but never could locate it. You see, it took about a forty-foot jump off into the river and it had had about forty years to settle; so I guess it must have been several feet deep in river mud when we were hunting it. We finally gave up hopes of finding it and went to hunting the chest. The map called for three landmarks all an equal distance apart. The chest was supposed to be buried in the center of the triangle made by these points. We found the first one, a big rock in a funny shape, without any trouble at all. The others were big pine trees, but all the trees in that country had been cut down and rafted down the river since the map was made; so we couldn’t ever find the other two marks. We sighted off places by every tree-stump in that neighborhood and dug down at the points we found, but must not ever have sighted by the right stumps. Anyhow, we hunted gold for about two months and never found a cent of anything. The Mexican finally got discouraged and went home, but I got a copy of his map and have been looking for that money off and on ever since.

“And I guess that’s about all there is to it. If any of you-all want to see where the ferry was and where the cannon was rolled off into the river, we’ll go up there in the morning and look around.”

THE DREAM WOMAN AND THE WHITE ROSE BUSH

By Mary A. Sutherland

This story, or legend, or what you will, was told me by an ex-Confederate soldier, an intelligent man.

“After the war I got back to Texas broke, as were all my people, but I bought a little farm in Leon County on credit, married, and began to build a home. I was progressing fairly well when one summer I had a dream, or vision. I was sleeping on the gallery, my wife and two small children occupying the bed just inside the door.

“I saw a woman come into the yard through the gate, a strange looking woman with strange headgear and queer dress, and I marveled that my fierce watch dogs did not attack her. She came to the side of the gallery and said in a clear voice: ‘Dig in your little pasture and you will find treasure.’

“I sat up and watched her go out of the gate, just as she had come, and could hardly persuade myself that what I saw was a dream. The next morning I told my wife of the dream—and then forgot it. Now the little pasture was a few fenced acres near the house where we kept our milk calves. It was drouth stricken; the soil was hard and dry and had no growth except a few brambles.

“Not many nights later while I lay as before, the same woman came again. I saw her plainly in the moonlight. She spoke, very quietly but distinctly, the same words: ‘Dig in your little pasture. Dig beneath the white rose.’

“Now I knew that there was no growth in the little pasture excepting the few brambles I have mentioned. But on my telling my wife of seeing the woman again in a dream, she said: ‘Come on; let’s look for roses.’ And catching my hand, she laughingly dragged me to the pasture. There, as sure as I am a Reb, we found a rose bush with two white flowers on it. Then we got busy, but, after digging down about two feet, I found a large rock and quit.

“The story got out and I became the butt of many jokes. A few months afterward my brother-in-law offered me a fancy price for the place and I quit farming. Later on in the year I noticed that the little pasture had been plowed—the only mark of improvement noticeable. About the same time I noticed my brother-in-law buying property, including a fine family carriage, sending his daughter to boarding school, and getting himself elected to the state legislature. Maybe there was something under the roses.”

After the “Reb” had told me the foregoing story, I heard from his wife that a legend about their farm was current in the settlement. According to the commonly told account, three men camped one night in the vicinity of the “little pasture.” In the morning one of them went to a settler’s cabin nearby to borrow tools, saying that one of their party had died during the night from wounds received in an Indian fight a few days before. The man declined all offer of help from the wife and daughter of the settler—the settler himself being absent—but after the campers had departed, the women went out, smoothing the ground over the mound and placing a stone above it.

Now what they buried or why no one knows to this day, but, as was remarked at the time, their horses bore marks of long travel. The women of the cabin saw three men arrive; they saw the mound; they saw three men depart. If a dying comrade was with them, they asked no aid.

It only remains to be said that, though a fine man, Mr. H—, the teller of this story, was the kind of man who would miss a chance at wealth rather than incur the ridicule of neighbors or exert himself in raising a stone.

STEINHEIMER’S MILLIONS

By L. D. Bertillion

It seems that almost all of the people in the rural districts of Bell, Falls, and Williamson counties must know something of Steinheimer’s ten jack loads of hidden treasure, for it is continually being searched for and has been searched for over a long period of years. The search has extended to many places, the locations varying as much as seven miles. Some claim that the treasure is buried at Reed’s Lake; others, at Bugess Lake; but the general opinion is that it is buried at what is known as the Three Forks. All of these places are in Bell County. The Steinheimer map is believed to be in the hands of persons residing in old Mexico, but how it got to Mexico no one seems to know. However, Mexicans searching for the treasure have claimed to have the map or a duplicate of it. Various white men have worked with these maps; others have used “gold rods” and similar instruments.

My own version of the story I secured from a man named Frank Ellis. He secured his information from a man named Nalley Jones, who, in turn, got his account from three Mexicans who spent three months searching for the treasure. There are forty other versions in and around Bell County. Some people will give you the exact amount of the treasure in dollars, but the consensus of opinion is that it was what could be carried on ten Mexican jacks. I have termed the treasure “millions” and consider my version of the story as nearly correct as any.

According to legendary information, Karl Steinheimer was born near Speyer, Germany, in 1793. At the age of eleven he ran away from home, became a sailor, and, in spite of his limited school attendance, acquired the fluent use of seven languages and a fair knowledge of three other languages. While yet in his teens he took a prominent part in several piratical expeditions, and by the time he had reached the age of twenty-one, captains commanding pirate vessels frequently sought his advice, for which he was liberally paid.

Among the pirate captains who came to Steinheimer was Louis Aury, [80] who sought counsel relative to traffic in negro slaves between Cuba and America. Steinheimer gave his advice and ended by furnishing a considerable amount of capital to the enterprise. Later, when Aury visited the Island of Galveston, which Steinheimer had recommended as a rendezvous, he was so well pleased with Steinheimer’s ability that he and others concerned unanimously made him dictator over the gang of slave dealers and sea terrors. However, on account of a broken leg, Steinheimer left the island but once during his dictatorship. That was when he made a run to Cuba in 1817. This hugging of a land berth by Steinheimer brought about a break with Aury, which resulted in a dissolution of partnership and the abandonment of the island by the slave smugglers.

Soon after the break, Steinheimer went far into the mountainous interior of Mexico and became interested in mining operations. In March, 1827, news reached him that Hayden Edwards, the noted Texas empresario, had started a revolution for the purpose of freeing Texas from Mexico, and had established the Republic of Fredonia. [81] Thereupon Steinheimer, in the hope of becoming dictator to a new country, decided to make his way to Edwards’ forces and to offer his assistance in person and in money. However, when he reached Monterrey he learned that the revolt had been put down and that Edwards and his followers had fled to the United States. Thus disappointed in his plans, Steinheimer returned to his mines in Mexico. Here he was prosperous and contented until the latter part of 1838, when he suddenly learned something that turned all his plans upside down and eventually brought about his death.

He learned that a sweetheart of his boyhood days in Europe was living in St. Louis, and was as yet unmarried. Immediately he arranged to leave for St. Louis. His affairs closed, he found that his fortune amounted to ten jack loads of silver and gold. His purpose was to carry the entire fortune with him, and he picked two men to aid him.

When Steinheimer got to Matamoros, he found that, notwithstanding Santa Anna’s defeat nearly three years before, Mexico still hoped to repossess Texas. As a preliminary to conquest, one Manuel Flores with a few warriors was preparing to start from Matamoros early in 1839 for Nacogdoches, his mission being to instigate an Indian uprising in Texas. Learning further that the Apaches were both numerous and hostile north of the San Antonio road, Steinheimer decided to wait for Flores and his party. He waited until early spring and then the entire company set out. When they reached the Colorado River, they were dismayed to learn that General Burleson was advancing on them and that an engagement was only a matter of hours. Here we may safely presume that there was a secret compact between Flores and Steinheimer. At any rate, the adventurer was permitted to slightly out-distance Flores and to switch his men and burros some miles north. Consequently, when Flores met his doom, [82] Steinheimer was unknown to the Texans.

After a complete rest for his men and animals, he cautiously picked his way across prairies and canyons, avoiding all trails, until he reached a place where three streams intersect and combine into one. Here he decided to bury all of his fortune but one small package of gold that might be needed for immediate use. Accordingly, he unpacked the burros and concealed their freight. The only mark made to designate the spot of concealment was a large brass spike driven into an oak tree some forty or sixty feet away, the spike being of the type used to take the place of bolts in early boat construction. The animals that had so faithfully borne the treasure over mountains and deserts were now liberated, and with his two trusted men Steinheimer took a southeastern direction.

When they had traveled, as he judged, some twelve or fourteen miles, they came to what, in his meager descriptions that have come down to us, he terms “a bunch of knobs on the prairie,” from the tops of which they could see a great valley skirted with timber some ten miles east. While they were getting their bearings from these knobs, the party was attacked by the Indians. Steinheimer’s two aides were both killed outright, and he escaped badly wounded. He hid himself on the center hill of the group, and here it was that he buried his remaining gold, with the exception of six Spanish coins, the place of deposit not marked. In the encounter he had lost his mount and supplies, though he still had gun and some ammunition.

He set out afoot, choosing a northern direction, subsisting as best he could off roots and water, for he was afraid to shoot at game until he was out of the vicinity of the Indians. Finally he got to where he could kill meat. But now his wounds were growing more painful, and at the juncture when he thought that gangrene was setting up in them, he fell into the hands of some travelers.

Realizing the threat of immediate death, he made a crude map as best he could of the region of his buried millions and wrote to his early sweetheart a concise account of his fortunes and misfortunes, informing her of the critical condition in which he was writing. He explained that the strangers to whom he was entrusting this message knew nothing of his name or history and would get nothing of his but the six Spanish coins. Finally, he requested that she keep his message secret for three months. If he recovered, he would, he explained, reach St. Louis by the expiration of that time; if he did not arrive, she was to understand that he was dead and that his fortune was hers. These are the last tidings of Steinheimer; it is, therefore, to be presumed that death was quite as near as he had supposed.

In the course of time the letter reached its destination, but a number of years passed before conditions in Texas were such that the relatives of the lady felt that they could look for the treasure with any degree of safety. Then after months of search and inquiry they were convinced that the three streams referred to in the directions were the Nolan, the Lampasas, and the Leon, which unite not far from the present town of Belton to form what is now called Little River. Here must lie the vast fortune. In consequence, it is deduced that the small parcel of gold could not be over two or three miles from the town of Rogers, in Bell County also, as near it are what are, indeed, still called the Knobs, a small bunch of hills lying between the Santa Fe and “Katy” railroads, at about the charted distance from the Three Forks.

While, as I said in the beginning, the history of Steinheimer’s buried wealth is at present known to many persons, there is no evidence that any part of it has ever been found, despite the great amount of time and money that have been spent in quest of it. Alike unknown is the place of the death and burial of the man Steinheimer, though he was once notorious both on land and sea. Unknown is he, too, to the histories of the several countries in which he lived. The relatives who came to Texas in search of the vast fortune bequeathed to the lady in such a strange manner were careful never to reveal her name. And this is perhaps the first time that the name of Steinheimer has appeared before the general public. [83]

THE SNIVELY LEGEND

By J. Frank Dobie

I

Major, or Colonel, Jacob Snively (also spelled Schnively) led the kind of life that inspires legend. [84] In 1843 he headed an expedition to capture a great Mexican wagon train on its way from St. Louis to Santa Fe; but he was balked in his design by United States troops, and his men were disarmed in New Mexico and sent back to Texas. A quarter of a century later, in 1867, he aided in raising a second expedition of about one hundred men to go up the Rio Grande in search of gold reputed to be inestimably plentiful. His base of organization was Williamson County, and one would fain identify this Snively with the Snively of Miss von Blittersdorf’s legend of Milam County, which adjoins Williamson. It is known that Snively was at one time looking for the old San Gabriel Mission, cornering on which he claimed thirty leagues of land. [85] If he found the ruins, his nature would certainly have provoked him to do a little treasure hunting. However, Colonel Snively is said to have died in Arizona, a citizen of California. [86] A little personal investigation among the records and oldest inhabitants of Williamson and Milam counties would no doubt disclose interesting information about Colonel Snively and probably establish a close relationship between him and the Snively of Miss von Blittersdorf’s legend. I regret that I have been unable to conduct such investigation.

From a veteran, more than eighty years old, of the Texas Rangers and of the Civil War, the elder Mr. Burton of Austin, two legends connected with Snively’s two respective expeditions have come to me.

II

When Snively’s men were disbanded in New Mexico in 1843, they came back to the Texas settlements more eager than ever for Mexican prey. About the time of their return a Mexican train was going across the Republic with a cargo of money for St. Louis. By agreement with the Texas authorities it was accompanied by a detachment of Texas Rangers, who traveled nearly a day’s ride behind. The Mexicans distrusted them; yet they wanted them, for they were afraid of the Snively gang. At Red River they expected to be met by United States troops, who could not cross into Texas. When the advance scout of the train came in sight of Red River, he saw two men riding towards him, and at once concluded that they were Snively bandits. He galloped back and reported them as such to the train. The Mexicans at once began a retreat and a safe disposition of their precious cargo.

On a hill about a mile south of a cottonwood tree that grew on the bank of Red River, four or five hundred yards below an old Spanish crossing, they buried five hundred dollars. On the top of the next hill south of that they buried five hundred more. These two deposits were to be markers and were buried in shallow holes. On the third hill they buried the remainder of their money, many thousands. Then they destroyed their wagons and beat back towards the Rio Grande as best they could. They had become convinced that their escort, even though kept a day’s ride behind, was in collusion with the supposed Snively gang. Very shortly after this event the Mexican War broke out, and by the time it was over and affairs had settled down in Texas so that Mexicans could travel inland with security, most of the little band of gold transporters had died or had been killed in battle. The remnant had forgotten the location of the money. Men, though, still look for the tree on Red River bank, below an old crossing, with a line of three hills to the south.

Mr. Tom L. Walker of Montague County, which fronts on Red River, has supplied me a legend somewhat similar to the foregoing. He says that it is current in the county. About 1856 four white men and six Mexicans were transporting a wagon load of gold bullion across Texas from Mexico to St. Louis. Near the Illinois Bend of Red River they were set on by Comanches, and dumped their gold into a lake. Only one of them, a Mexican named Gonzales, survived the attack. He would never return to the site of his terrible experience. In 1890 some men went from Montague County to Mexico City to interview the old man. They found him, but he was blind, crippled, and feeble. He could only tell them that the gold was “on the south side of the largest of the lakes.” Time had so shifted the positions of the lakes, however, that the men who got the information could never determine where to make a thorough excavation.

III

Snively’s second expedition belongs in a large way to lost treasure lore. In Hunter’s Magazine for January, 1911, page 5, John Warren Hunter has an article on “The Schnively Expedition,” in which he quotes “Bud” (W. H.) Robinson’s account of the two gold hunting expeditions that Snively and Colonel William C. Dalrymple, of Williamson County, organized in 1867 and 1868. The first was made up of only sixteen men and was turned back by the Indians; the second, much larger, was able to ward off the Indians, but it could not locate the gold that had been so luringly promised by Snively.

“From the Pecos,” says Robinson as quoted by Hunter, “the expedition went forward and finally reached Eagle Springs, not a great distance from the Rio Grande. This was to be our camping place, as Mr. Schnively had told us that the gold mine was in the vicinity of the springs. He said he had first received information from a dying soldier touching the existence of gold in the region and later he had prospected and found the mine. He knew right where to go to point out the location, he said.”

But evidently Snively did not know. His men came to believe that he had never before visited the place but had raised the expedition in order to have protection in his prospecting. In anger and in disappointment the expedition broke up, the men scattering to the four winds. And here my informant, the old Texas Ranger, takes up the tale. Some of the men, he says, came back home; some went on to California and to Colorado; some continued prospecting in a westerly direction. Three of them got lost in the desert, and while trying to make their way to the Rio Grande came into what must have been the Apache Canyon.

In that canyon they stumbled upon two Mexican carts loaded with gold bullion. About were the bleached skeletons of men and oxen, the remains of some old Spanish gold plundering expedition that had perished in the desert. Some men used to say that Coronado’s men must have started back with this gold. The three Texans loaded themselves with the precious metal, but before very long they had to cast it away in their struggle to reach water. Fortunately, they did reach water and were saved. Later they equipped themselves and went back into the desert to take the immense wealth. They could never find it. Landmarks are scarce in that country. Very likely, too, the shifting sands of the desert had covered the wagons with their freight of gold. They may be uncovered some day; if so, it will likely be for only a day or an hour, and the man who sees them will probably be perishing for water, so that the sight of them and the white bones near will strike him as a terrible prophecy rather than as a life-time of hope realized.

BURIED TREASURE LEGENDS OF MILAM COUNTY

By Louise von Blittersdorf

These legends were told me by Mr. Mike Welch, an old gentleman living near Thorndale.

I

THE SAN GABRIEL MISSION IN LEGEND

[Although up to ten years ago Texas history had hardly recognized the existence of the San Gabriel missions, legend had kept the fact and the place green for generations. In April, 1914, an article by Dr. Herbert E. Bolton, on “The Founding of the Missions on the San Gabriel River, 1745–1749,” appeared in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly. The next year Dr. Bolton’s book entitled Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century was issued by the University of California Press; in it pages 135–278 treat of “The San Xavier Missions.” These are the main and almost only accessible sources for whoever would know the history of the San Gabriel missions. There were three missions, the principal and most enduring one being the Mission San Francisco Xavier de Horcasitas (1748–1755). The name San Xavier was later corrupted into San Gabriel. [87] The San Gabriel missions had trouble with the Indians, and it is a fact that a priest, Father Ganzábal, as in the legend, was killed by them. [88]

Before the mission was abandoned in 1755, legend had seized upon it; and when Dr. Bolton discovered the site hardly a dozen years ago, he found that legend had kept treasure hunters familiar with the grounds and ruins. [89] He quotes Father Mariano, [90] priest of the time, on legendary causes that contributed to the final abandonment of the mission: “The sacrilegious homicides having been perpetrated, the elements at once conspired, declaring divine justice provoked; for in the sky appeared a ball of fire so horrible that all were terrified, and with so notable a circumstance that it circled from the presidio to the mission of the Occisos [Orcoquiza], and returned to the same presidio, when it exploded with a noise as loud as could be made by a heavily loaded cannon. The river ceased to run, and its waters became so corrupt that they were extremely noxious and intolerable to the smell. The air became so infected that all who went to the place, even though merely passing, became infected by the pest, which became so malicious that many of the inhabitants died, and we all found ourselves in the last extremes of life. Finally, the land became so accursed that what had been a beautiful plain became converted into a thicket, in which opened horrible crevices that caused terror. And the inhabitants became so put to it, in order to escape the complete extermination that threatened them, that they moved more than thirty leagues away, with no other permission than that granted them by the natural right to save their own lives.”

We learn how rich was the San Gabriel Mission, for whose cross of solid gold men have blithely sought, when we read that the total properties transported from it and its two sister missions, including six bells, were inventoried at $1804.50. [91]—Editor.]

In the early days of Texas, when the missionaries were bringing old world civilization to the new world, there stood a mission on the San Gabriel River between what are now the towns of San Gabriel and Rockdale. The mission was a thriving one, and before many months a large rock church had been built. The crowning glory of this church was a solid gold cross on the steeple.

Many converts were made to the new religion, and the small community soon became so powerful that the Indians began to fear it and decided to put an end to it. Accordingly, they murdered the priest there. The surviving Spaniards decided to abandon the mission at once. First, they buried the body of the murdered priest; then they took the cross from the steeple of the church and buried it, together with some gold found in the priest’s possession, until they should have time to return for it and carry it away. By covering the gold with charcoal and ashes, they took precautions that no mineral rod should locate it.

Many years later a church was being built in Mexico, and an old Mexican who had heard from his ancestors the story of the buried cross and treasure, came to the priest and prevailed upon him to go to the San Gabriel River and try to find the gold cross to put on the new church. During the journey the Mexican died, leaving with his companion directions for finding the cross. Duties back home were urging the priest’s return, and when he met a young Irishman named Mike Welch, he entrusted him with the secret and obtained his promise to carry on the search. With two men to help him, Mr. Welch went to the site of the old mission. Digging a certain distance from a specified tree, the men unearthed the skeleton of the priest together with a small crucifix. Then, according to directions, they measured the distance from the grave to the nearest corner of the church and began to dig again. They came at last to some charcoal and ashes and knew that they were near the object of their search. One of Mr. Welch’s men took sick, however, and, as it was nearly dark, they decided to postpone further digging until morning. That night the other man slipped away from camp. As soon as Mr. Welch discovered next morning that one of his helpers was missing, he went to the unfinished hole. There he saw where a large pot had been taken out. It is well understood that the gold cross and other treasures were found and stolen away. The thief left that part of the country and has never been heard of since. Mr. Welch kept the crucifix until a few years ago, when it was lost.

II

THE GOLD PROTECTED BY SNIVELY’S GHOST

An old man by the name of Snively once lived near what is now Thorndale in Milam County. He owned a great deal of property along the San Gabriel River. One night some Mexicans with nine jack loads of stolen gold passed near Snively’s house. The times were troublesome, and traveling was beset with dangers. When the Mexicans neared the river, they decided that it would be well to bury their cargo here and wait for more peaceful times to carry it on into Mexico. After they had put it in the ground and covered it over with isinglass to prevent its being discovered by a mineral rod, they realized that the only sure and safe protection would be to bury a man with the gold. No one of them seemed willing to give his life to such a cause; so in search of a victim they rode back to the house they had passed. They found Snively alone. They made him swear to protect the gold, then killed him and buried him with it. Then they marked the site and went on their way—never to return.

Many have searched for the treasure since but have failed to find it. Snively has taken care of that. Mr. Welch claims that he once found the place where it was buried, but that before he could dig for it, a flood came down the river and covered the place. When the water subsided, it left no trace of where the gold was buried. Snively will always have the help of the elements, if necessary, to protect the gold.

On dull, rainy nights a light may be seen going across the field. It is not carried by anyone, but moves of itself. People say that the light leads to Snively’s grave and the nine jack loads of gold, but, because of the rain perhaps, no one has ever followed the light and it is still a mystery.

Another story in the Thorndale neighborhood very much like this one asserts that some Mexicans, wishing to protect buried gold, killed a priest and buried him with it, and that whenever anyone starts to dig where the gold is buried, he is run away by an angry bull that has fire coming out of its nostrils. [92]

III

POPE’S GHOST AT THE GAP

Pope was a man who lived in the post oak grove near what is now Thorndale. He lived entirely alone, and, as that part of the country was then newly settled, there was not a house within miles of Pope’s log hut. It would, therefore, be easy to attack him some night as he came along the road, kill him, and steal his hoard of gold. The murder could be committed, and the murderer could escape into Mexico and live in luxury on the stolen money, with nothing to fear save his own conscience. Such must have been the idea of the villain who murdered Pope one dark night just as Pope turned into the gap to go to his hut. Perhaps the gold was hidden too well for the murderer to find it. No one knows. At any rate, after Pope’s body was found and decently buried, his spirit was apparently not at rest; near the gap for a long time thereafter a strange dog was seen. It was undoubtedly the ghost of Pope, for no other dog would venture near it, much less fight it. Horses shied at it when they met it in the road. When a man hit it with a stone, it refused to move, and a bullet had not the slightest effect upon it. Some tried to touch the dog, but when they were about to lay hand upon it, it disappeared. Whoever rode by the gap at sunset was almost sure to see it; often, however, if a party of several persons came by, it would be invisible to all save a particular individual. The ghost dog continued to appear for several years, but after a time he disappeared forever. [93] The gate, however, that has taken the place of the gap near which Pope was killed, will not stay shut. No matter how you close it, it will open of itself and remain open.

THE WAGON-LOAD OF SILVER IN CLEAR FORK CREEK

By L. W. Payne, Jr.

The following legend was written up at my suggestion by Mr. Tom Gambrell of Lockhart. He says that it is well known in the neighborhood of Lockhart, and that he has followed accurately the account as given by the two oldest inhabitants of Lockhart.

The last trouble that the early settlers in Caldwell County had with the Indians was just before the great war between the states. At that time about twenty of the savages suddenly swept down from the north, plundering and devastating where they would. They had with them a wagon into which they put stolen valuables, and by the time they got to Lockhart it was pretty well filled with silver in various forms. Here they seized a white woman, and then turned to follow along the eastern bank of Clear Fork Creek, which runs directly south about two miles west of town.

The whites hastily united to pursue the Indians and soon were close upon them, for the marauders could not flee very fast with their wagon-load of silver. As soon as they saw their peril, they unhitched the horses, emptied the silver into the creek, left their wagon on the bank, and continued their flight with the woman still their captive. The white men passed the wagon and continued the chase. Nearer and nearer they drew on the Indians, who had now turned southwest and were approaching the steep hills and treacherous valleys that surround Round Top Mountain, some eight miles southwest of Lockhart. Here the Indians used to build their fires to call together their warriors. The whites were within half a mile of the redskins when the latter, beating their horses furiously and riding at full speed, entered this almost impenetrable region. The Indian who was carrying the woman in front of him realized that his horse was overburdened and that he himself would certainly be caught unless he lightened the load. Consequently he knocked the woman in the head with his tomahawk, threw her off, and entered the border of the thicket at increased speed. When the whites reached the woman, she was dead. They pursued the brutes a little farther, but soon found out that the Indians were the better runners among the underbrush, and gave up the chase.

On returning, the men took up the corpse and carried it close to town, where they buried it. Many years later, the Prairie Lea-Lockhart road was laid out. The grave, neatly arched with stones, lies close by the roadway, and can be seen by any one who will go from Lockhart about a mile and a half down that road.

Owing to the death of the captive woman and to the near approach of night, the whites did not search for the silver that evening. But next day they went to the creek and looked for the booty. They found none, but carried away the wagon. Since then others have sought in vain for the treasure. The creek has been dredged and seined, and its bottom gouged, but no silver has been found. Some say that the Indians returned that night and recovered it. Others believe that it has sunk into the boggy mire of the creek bottom.

However this may be, the grave is still a visible evidence of the essential truth of the legend. A number of the pursuers of the Indians said that they saw the silver tumble into the water. And the two surviving pursuers, recognized as reliable and honorable men, insist that the whole story is based on fact.

MORO’S GOLD

By Fannie E. Ratchford

I heard the story of Moro’s gold first, when a very small child, from my mother, who herself remembered it from her tenth year, and from my grandmother, who, except for its tragic outcome, would have forgotten the whole incident in her busy life as mistress of a large plantation. I heard it when several years older from my father, who knew it merely as a family and neighborhood legend, and I heard it again a few years ago from my mother’s cousin, Judge W. P. McLean of Fort Worth, who as a young man was living in my grandfather’s home at the time the incident occurred. The story as I give it here contains elements of all four slightly varying accounts.

Before the Civil War, my grandfather, Preston R. Rose, lived on a large plantation, called Buena Vista, lying along the Guadalupe River, seven miles from Victoria, near the Indianola road. Late one afternoon, two years before the Civil War began, he was sitting on the porch reading, when my mother, who was playing near, called his attention to the unusual sight of a stranger coming across the field from the direction of the river. The stranger was of small stature and dark complexion, evidently a Spaniard. When he had reached the porch, he addressed my grandfather in the easy, courteous manner of a gentleman and an equal, and requested hospitality for the night, explaining that his pack mule had gotten away from him and that he had exhausted himself in a fruitless search.

His request was granted without question, and Moro took up his residence at Buena Vista, which on one pretext or another lasted for several months, in spite of the suspicious and disquieting circumstances that soon arose. The first of these was the report brought in by the negroes the next morning after Moro’s arrival, that a mule with a pistol shot through his head had been found partially buried in the river bottom. Another was the fact that Moro was never seen without a glove on his right hand, not even at meal time. The negro boy who waited on him in his room reported that he once saw him without the glove when he was washing his hand, and described a strange device on his wrist that was probably a tattooed figure. But the most disturbing circumstance connected with Moro was his eagerness to get rid of money. He distributed gold coins (of what coinage, I never heard) among the household servants like copper pennies, until Grandfather rather sharply requested him to stop.

Though there was not much to be bought in the little town of Victoria, Moro never came back from a trip to town without the most expensive presents that could be bought for all the family in spite of the fact that they were invariably refused. My mother seems to have been particularly impressed by a large oil painting which he once bought from a local artist at an impossible price, as a present for my grandmother. When she refused to accept it, he asked permission to hang it in the library, and there it hung as long as the house was in possession of the family.

Frequently Moro proposed the most extravagant things. Once he urged Grandfather to allow him to build a great stone house of feudal magnificence to replace the colonial frame house in which he lived. Again he proposed that he take the entire family to Europe at his expense, leaving the girls there to receive an elaborate education in the best schools to be found on the continent.

One day as Moro was walking about the plantation with Grandfather, the question of plantation debts came up, and Moro remarked in a significant tone that Grandfather was at that minute standing within fifty feet of enough gold to enable him to pay all the debts of the plantation and still be a rich man, even if he did not own an acre of land or a negro slave. Grandfather’s anger prevented his continuing the disclosure that he was evidently eager to make. The only landmark of any kind near was a large fig tree about fifty feet away.

In the meantime the negroes had caught the idea of buried treasures, and many were the tales they told of seeing Moro digging about the place at night.

A guest staying in the house one night reported that he had been drawn to the door of his room by an unusual noise, and had seen Moro painfully heaving a small chest up the stairway, step at a time.

My grandfather was a man in whom the spirit of adventure was strong. He had left his plantation to the direction of his wife while he went adventuring into the California gold fields in ’49. Consequently Moro was able to catch his interest by the story of buried treasures down on the Rio Grande, and Grandfather consented to go if he were allowed to make up his own party. The party as finally organized consisted of friends and neighbors, most of whom were well-to-do planters, but there was one man included somewhat out of the social class of the others, though well known and trusted throughout the neighborhood. To this man Moro objected strenuously, saying that he would either prevent their finding the treasure, or if it were found, would murder them all to get the whole for himself. Grandfather insisted, and the man went.

Moro was nervous and sulky from the start, and so aroused the suspicions of the party that by the time they reached the Rio Grande, he was not allowed out of sight. But despite the close watch kept upon him, he finally made his escape by diving from one of the boats in which the party was crossing the Rio Grande to the point where he said the treasure was to be found. The man whom Moro feared would have shot him as he appeared above the surface of the water if Grandfather had not prevented.

There was nothing left for the party to do but return home, for Moro had given them no map or directions that would enable them to make an independent search. But before setting out on the return, Grandfather foolishly accepted a dare to swim the river in a very wide place, and in doing so caught a severe cold that developed into “galloping consumption,” from which he died a few months later.

The rest of the story, so far as there is any, is confused and contradictory. A few weeks before Grandfather’s death, some of the negroes on the place came to the house, begging for relief from Moro’s ghost, which was seen almost nightly digging at various spots on the plantation, but most often near the big fig tree in the field.

Grandfather was too ill to make any investigation for himself, but he questioned the negroes closely, and came to the conclusion that all the stories had grown out of one real incident—that Moro had probably come back to recover money that he had buried on the place.

The man whom Moro feared went to Mexico to escape service in the Confederate Army, and his sudden rise to fortune, coupled with a wild story he told on his return of having met with Moro in Mexico, convinced my grandmother that he had in some way come into possession of the treasure.

Judge McLean, who was a member of the original party, believed the story of buried money on the Rio Grande to be nothing more than a ruse on the part of Moro, representing a band of border outlaws, to kidnap Grandfather and hold him for a ransom. He was very positive that he saw Moro hanged as a Yankee spy during the Civil War, while he was stationed on the border near Rio Grande City.

The legend of buried money still lingers around the old plantation of Buena Vista. [94] About ten years after the Civil War, my father bought the part of the plantation on which the home was situated, and during the years that he lived there was much annoyed by treasure seekers who begged permission to dig for “Moro’s gold,” or who came at night and dug without permission. In telling me the story, as he had heard it from various members of my mother’s family and from the negroes on the place, he expressed his belief that Moro had at one time buried money there. He told me that one day as he was showing a “free negro” how to run a straight furrow in the field not far from the old fig tree, the horse stumbled and his right foreleg sank in the ground up to the shoulder. The thought of Moro’s gold seems not to have entered my father’s mind at the time, but later he remembered it, and said that he was convinced that if there had ever been any money buried on the plantation it was in that spot.

LEGENDS OF THE SUPERNATURAL

THE LEGEND OF STAMPEDE MESA

By John R. Craddock

[Of all the legends in this volume “The Legend of Stampede Mesa” shows most of native originality. Like all true legends, it has had a wide vogue, though I have never heard it in the cattle country of the border. A few years ago a young man from the Panhandle, named Roy Ainsworth, gave me this abbreviated variant of it. Back in the days when range men paid in coin rather than in checks, a certain cattle buyer on one of the big ranches of Northwest Texas is believed to have been murdered for his money and his body put away in a shack or dugout near the principal round-up grounds of the ranch. After the murder, whenever an outfit tried to hold a herd of cattle on these grounds at night, they were sure to have a stampede. Cowboys reported many times having seen the murdered man’s ghost wandering about among the cattle in the darkness and, of course, stampeding them. Naturally, the place came to be avoided for night herding.—Editor.]

Among cattle folk no subject for anecdote and speculation is more popular than the subject of stampedes. There has always been a certain mystery surrounding the stampeding of cattle. Sometimes they stampede without any man’s having heard, seen, or smelled a possible cause. The following account of how Stampede Mesa got its name, together with the legend, told in many variations, of the phantom stampede, is current among the people of the Panhandle and New Mexico. I was a mere child when I heard it first, and I have since heard it many times.

Stampede Mesa is in Crosby County, Texas, about eighteen miles from the cap rock of Blanco Canyon, wedged up between the forks of Catfish (sometimes called White or Blanco) River. The main stream skirts it on the west; to the south the bluffs of the mesa drop a sheer hundred feet down into McNeil Branch. The two hundred acre top of the mesa is underlaid with rocks that are scarcely covered by the soil, though grazing is nearly always good. Trail drivers all agree that a better place to hold a herd will never be found. A herd could be watered at the river late in the evening and then be driven up the gentle slope of the mesa and bedded down for the night. In the morning there was water at hand before the drive was resumed. The steep bluffs to the south made a natural barrier so that night guard could be reduced almost half. Nevertheless, few herd bosses of the West would now, if opportunity came, venture to hold their herds on Stampede Mesa. Yet it will never succumb to the plow. Scarred and high, it will stand forever, a monument to the days that are gone, a wild bit of the old West to keep green the legend that has given to it the name, “Stampede Mesa.”

Early in the fall of ’89 an old cowman named Sawyer came through with a trail herd of fifteen hundred head of steers, threes and fours. While he was driving across Dockum Flats one evening, some six or seven miles east of the mesa, about forty-odd head of nester cows came bawling into the herd. Closely flanking them, came the nester, demanding that his cattle be cut out of the herd. Old Sawyer, who was “as hard as nails,” was driving short handed; he had come far; his steers were thin and he did not want them “ginned” about any more. Accordingly, he bluntly told the nester to go to hell.

The nester was pretty nervy, and seeing that his little stock of cattle was being driven off, he flared up and told Sawyer that if he did not drop his cows out of the herd before dark he would stampede the whole bunch.

At this Sawyer gave a kind of dry laugh, drew out his six shooter, and squinting down it at the nester, told him to “vamoose.”

Nightfall found the herd straggling up the east slope of what on the morrow would be christened by some cowboy Stampede Mesa. Midnight came, and with scarcely half the usual night guard on duty, the herd settled down in peace.

But the peace was not to last. True to his threat, the nester, approaching from the north side, slipped through the watch, waved a blanket a few times, and shot his gun. He did his work well. All of the herd except about three hundred head stampeded over the bluff on the south side of the mesa, and two of the night herders, caught in front of the frantic cattle that they were trying to circle, went over with them.

Sawyer said little, but at sunup he gave orders to bring in the nester alive, horse and all. The orders were carried out, and when the men rode up on the mesa with their prisoner, Sawyer was waiting. He tied the nester on his horse with a rawhide lariat, blindfolded the horse, and then, seizing him by the bits, backed him off the cliff. There were plenty of hands to drive Sawyer’s remnant now. Somewhere on the hillside they buried, in their simple way, the remains of their two comrades, but they left the nester to rot with the piles of dead steers in the canyon.

And now old cowpunchers will tell you that if you chance to be about Stampede Mesa at night, you can hear the nester calling his cattle, and many assert that they have seen his murdered ghost, astride a blindfolded horse, sweeping over the headland, behind a stampeding herd of phantom steers. Herd bosses are afraid of those phantom steers, and it is said that every herd that has been held on the mesa since that night has stampeded, always from some unaccountable cause.

I have a tale connected with two of these noted stampedes that I will relate here in the words of Poncho Burall, who told it to me.