[1] Although not a legend, this letter illustrates the popular speculation and tradition concerning La Salle—his followers, his fort, his death, even his treasure—that once flourished, first among the Spanish and then among the Anglo-Saxon Texans, but that now seem to be subsiding. As many places as claimed “Homer dead” have claimed the last resting place of La Salle. One informant writes that some Henderson County folk imagine that La Salle’s grave is on the west bank of the Neches in their precincts and that they have made recent excavations in search of treasure supposed to lie in the grave. De León made more than one expedition in search of the French; he did find an old man who had been with La Salle. See A School History of Texas, by Barker, Potts and Ramsdell, Chapter II.—Editor. [↑]
BIG FOOT AND LITTLE FOOT
By Mrs. S. J. Wright
This legend was given me by Mrs. Jack Hardy, now of El Paso, whose home was for several years in Alpine, Brewster County. The time of it goes back only thirty or thirty-five years, and the appearance of the footprints is vouched for today by some of our substantial citizens who were cowpunchers then.
In the Big Bend country campers would awake in the mornings to see tracks of moccasined feet leading to and from the vicinity—apparently of a man and a woman following. Sometimes, after having been trailed for miles, sometimes for shorter distances, suddenly the trail would be lost.
A cowboy sleeping out would awake and say: “Well, boys, ‘Big Foot and Little Foot’ have been here”; and there would be the ghostly footprints. By whom they were made, whence they came, whither they led, is still a mystery. Leaving their mysterious tracks, the treaders came and went as the winds and the rains, and with as little warning.
THE WILD WOMAN OF THE NAVIDAD
By Martin M. Kenney