The Metate Rocks of Loma Alta
Just west of the Hill of Seven Rocks towers in primeval roughness Loma Alta, the highest point of the whole country. John Murphy told me this story connected with it. An early settler [[40]]named Drummond had a squat near the foot of the mountain. One time an old Mexican came to him looking for some bullion that he claimed had been buried in the vicinity by ancient parientes (kinsmen) in flight from the Indians. His plata called for a mesquite tree on the southeast slope of Loma Alta marked by a certain sign. Murphy thinks that the sign was a cross but does not well remember. The plata called also for a line of smooth, oblong rocks that bore a resemblance to the stones used for grinding corn on the metate. They had been culled from the hillside and laid to point to the hidden bullion. Drummond and the Mexican found the tree but rode around for days without being able to find the rocks. They finally decided that generations of horses and cattle had scattered them so that they could no longer be recognized as forming a line, and gave up the search.
The Mexican left, Drummond died, and years passed. Then one day while Murphy was holding down a wormy calf out in the pasture to doctor it, he raised his eyes and saw three or four of the metate-like rocks lined up in some thick chaparral. He was down on his knees, so that he could see under the brush. He thought of the tale that Drummond had told him, and looking about further, he found, badly scattered, yet preserving a kind of line, other such rocks. But he could never settle on a place to dig, and so far as he knows no one has ever dug on that side of Loma Alta.