IV
Two kindred qualities of man, hope and credulity, remain to be considered among the sources of treasure legend in Texas. These qualities are not coördinate with the historical forces; rather, they have been acted upon by the historical forces. Yet they have a certain localized source like the legends themselves. For as the tradition of modern treasure goes back to El Dorado, so the Mexicans who lure Americans into the quest of treasure are direct descendants of the Indians who lured the early Spanish. These Indians often pointed the eager Spanish on beyond in order to get rid of them; so the modern Mexican frequently inspires credulity in American treasure hunters in order to gain a small reward.
There seems to be a more or less regular traffic in charts—platas—to buried treasure. One Mexican paid for medicine at a [[11]]drug store with his chart and story; another got pasturage for his burros at the same price; a third parted with his directive legend, which he believed in, to a white man for befriending him in sickness. Some of the platas purporting to be a century old are written with pencil on the cheapest of modern paper. The late John Warren Hunter asserted that at one time the chart business was a regular industry in San Antonio.[32] Only recently a man was indicted in Fort Worth for fraudulently obtaining money on pretense of organizing an expedition to seek $5,000,000 in gold nuggets in a cave in Mexico.[33] How the nuggets got in the cave involved a long story around an Indian, General Custer, Jesse James, and Pancho Villa. It was a good story![34]
However, it would be grossly wronging the chief purveyors of treasure charts and legends to ascribe their action even primarily to avarice. It is as easy to promise gold as it is to promise rain, and in a country in which neither is plentiful the Mexican shows his desire to please by predicting both. Many a treasure legend has originated in motives as innocent as those of Uncle Remus.