This legend, though it cannot be said to be retold in his exact words, came to me from a wood-cutter named T. W. Williams, who while hauling wood about the streets of Austin had time enough to stop and talk.
Out in the hills of Williamson County, a certain old path can still be found leading down to the San Gabriel River. If you follow the ancient path from the west bank of the Gabriel for a [[168]]distance of some two hundred yards, you will find there on the hill the remains of the old Lazy J ranch house. If you follow the path from the east bank, you will soon come to its end among the rock-strewn hills. Years ago a foot-log connected the parts of the path, and at it in days now long past a man and a beautiful young woman were accustomed to meet. The girl came from the ranch house on the hill, and the man, a cowboy, came from somewhere out beyond the trail’s end, no one now knows where.
A little before sunset one evening, the girl walked down to the crossing to meet her lover. A few minutes later the cowboy sprang from his horse on the opposite bank, and, scarcely waiting to tie his mount, started across the foot-log. The ride had been long, and the man was unsteady on his feet after being for such a long while in the saddle. He wore heavy leggins and Mexican spurs, and in his haste he lost his footing on the log and fell into the river. He was never again seen.
The sight of the tragedy and the loss of her lover caused the maiden to become, as people believed, insane. Every evening at sunset throughout the remaining days of her life, she went to the foot-log to meet a phantom lover who came, as in life, to meet her. Her dying request was that if she lived until sunset, she should be carried to the bank of the stream. This request was complied with, and her attendants, on reaching the spot, witnessed a strange and pathetic ritual. The dying woman raised herself on her elbow and spoke a few words to the invisible lover, and then fell back lifeless on the stretcher. They buried her there by the foot-path, and the good folk will tell you yet that at dusk you can hear the lovers as they whisper by the path, or that sometimes in the coming shadows you can see the phantom woman drooped and waiting at the place where the foot-log used to be.[1] [[169]]
[1] Through the courtesy of Miss Nell Andrew, librarian of Texas Christian University, I have seen a poem by A. Clark, Jr., that relates a similar tale. A phantom lover on the Rio Grande diurnally meets his love. The poem is called “Legend of the Great River” and was published in Add-Rann (T. C. U.), Vol. IV, No. 8, 1898.—Editor. [↑]
LOVER’S LEAP AT SANTA ANNA[1]
By Austin Callan
Tradition tells us that long ago an Indian village nestled at the foot of “Santana Peaks,” called Las Mesas. It was before the white man’s ambition for new territory led him into the wild haunts of the savage; before Anglo-Saxon enterprise transformed the West from a wilderness of romance to a vulgar land of farms and ranches. Herds of buffaloes and deer roamed the prairies; wild turkeys, geese and game birds were as plentiful as the leaves on the trees; and the people were happy and indolent.