Pete Staples, an old negro trail driver, tells how, when he was once hunting wild turkeys with Judge Lowe of McMullen County, they stumbled into some curiously placed rocks. “Huh, what’s [[31]]this?” he said. “Looks mighty funny to me for rocks in this place. Where’d they all cum from and how cum this way? Ain’t no other rocks like thesen for a mile.”
“Natural rocks all right,” said Judge Lowe, “but this is an old pen.” Judge Lowe died something more than a year ago. I have heard that he afterwards tried to find the pens, but failed. Pete, having a firm conviction that it is dangerous to “monkey” with money that some man now dead buried, has never been back to look for the pens, though he declares that men have tried to hire him as a guide and that he could find them, but “ain’t a-guine to.” The pens, according to Pete, are in the Guidan Pasture, which joins the Shiner and comprises some twenty or thirty thousand acres of land.
Another time, a good many years earlier, says Pete, a Mexican who was being chased by an Indian in the Las Chuzas country leaped over a spring of water and as he leaped saw a bar of silver shining in it. Later he went back and hunted for six months without ever finding the spring, much less the silver. It does look, as Pete expresses it, as if that money “ain’t meant” for any of the people who have looked for it. When the man comes along for whom it is “meant,” he will just naturally find it without even trying. Nevertheless, some people are still trying.
The cheering thing about looking for the Rock Pens is that even though the search for them be fruitless, one may stumble upon some other treasure at almost any time, for the whole San Caja Mountain country is rich in lost and buried treasure. Some of the legends follow. For much of the material I am indebted to that interesting tale-teller and one-time eager treasure-hunter, Mr. E. M. Dubose, of Mathis, already referred to. For material not derived from him I try to give specific sources. However, some of it is such common talk in the country and has for so long been a part of me that I cannot always cite exact sources.
A Week Too Late at the Laredo-San Antonio Crossing
Neal Russell was out with two other cowpunchers on the Nueces River. They had extra mounts and a pack outfit and were well supplied. One day while they were hunting cattle they came up on two very old Mexicans. The Mexicans looked scared and acted peculiarly, but they were so old and worn and thin that Russell paid little attention to their secret manner. Finding that [[32]]they were out of something to eat, he told them where camp was and invited them up for a fill and a rest.
Well, after Russell and his men had come in and waited around a while, the Mexicans appeared. They ate and then, evidently feeling at ease with the Texans, who were talking Mexican like natives, they asked if anyone knew where the old San Antonio and Laredo crossing was.
“Why, yes,” replied Russell, “it is not two hundred yards from here, right down the river. I’ll show it to you in the morning.”
The Mexicans now seemed to think that they had as well take the Texans into confidence, and what seemed the older of the two made this explanation. “I was through this country the last time in 1836. I was with a small detachment of the Mexican army taking a load of money to San Antonio to pay off General Cos’s men. We had gotten a day’s ride north of here when we heard by courier of Santa Anna’s defeat. We knew that it was foolish to go on and so turned back, expecting at any hour to hear the Texans coming up on us. Just before we reached the east side of the Nueces, the front axle of our wagon broke square in two. There wasn’t anything to do but to cut a tree down and from a post hew into shape another axle. We managed to pull out of the road a little way, and set to work.