Then the men working on the house noticed that he was apparently hunting after various herbs and plants and making a close study of the ground. After he had investigated for about two weeks in his solitary manner, the Mexican seemed very much depressed. One night he came to the camp of the Texans and asked for the owner of the land. Then he told his story. He and his burros had come over the long trail from the interior of Mexico to seek a buried chest of treasure. His trail had ended; he had not found the treasure. The history of that treasure he gave thus:
“When my father was a boy, he left home to go with a party of Spaniards to the seacoast. They had three big wagons and a grand carriage, the carriage for the captain, one wagon for the cook, and two wagons for the guard. They started at midnight from a mine belonging to the captain, and as they set forth they made a great show to the stars. They traveled to and across the Rio Grande without trouble, and then, señor, the sands,[1] the terrible desert. They were days getting across, and then, with the tough Spanish mules worn to the bone, they camped in the nearest spot where there was water.
“They prepared to rest for a week, but in the night the Indians charged, killed one man, and got off with two mules. The party started again at dawn, the Indians following. The Spanish captain decided to leave one wagon; so he took out the heavy boxes and put them in the carriage with himself. Thus the pobrecitos traveled till they came to the Nueces, on this very trail, and here on this bank they camped. That night they got out the heavy boxes, and the captain and three men dug a great hole and buried them, while the rest of the party stood guard.
“At dawn they crossed the river at the ford, hoping somehow to escape and make it back to Mexico for more guards. Five days later the Indians came on with a great whoop and every soul [[51]]was killed except the boy, my father. He slid out into the tall grass, and after many months got back home. Now he is muy, muy viejo (very, very old), and he has sent me to get as much of the gold as I could pack on three burros. They buried the gold, he says, at the foot of a tree and put some stones above it. But the tree is gone and there are stones everywhere. I go tomorrow. If you find the Spanish gold, it is yours. Adios!”
Needless to say, for a few days the woods were full of treasure hunters, but so far as is known not one was successful. Yet the story that there is a chest of gold buried on Riverside Ranch has held from those early days to this time.
[1] Old-timers still call much of the “Magic Rio Grande Valley” by nothing else than The Sands.—Editor. [↑]
THE BATTLEFIELDS OF PALO ALTO AND RESACA DE LA PALMA IN LEGEND
By J. Frank Dobie