“Not long after that, Paw went to a fortune teller, and he told him that they was a whole lot of money right there in that hole, an’ if he had just lifted the rock on the other side he would a found it, but it wouldn’t do him any good to go back, for the spirits were watching that money, and they wusn’t no man on the green earth that could get it until he could lay them spirits.”
Zeno was now thoroughly warmed up to his subject, and as soon as this last story had had time to soak in, he started again.
“They’s another place, too, up on the Frio where they’s money buried. Ever’body knows hit’s there, but nobody ain’t ever been able to find it. My uncle was hunting up there once, when he found a funny piece of old, old iron chain, and after a while he saw some rocks with the funniest kind of marks on them, that wusn’t put there by no white man, either. He come back to get Paw, and they hunted and hunted for the place, but they never could find the rocks ner the marks ner nothing. The fortune teller told Paw that the spirits always turned them away just when they were about to find the right place.”
“I am sorry you can’t tell me exactly where those places are, Zeno. Do you suppose your father could tell me?” I asked.
“He kin tell yer all right if he wants to,” was the canny answer. “He knows where just about all the money in Texas is buried, I guess.”
Needless to say, I took occasion to go to Paw’s place of business not long after, but found to my disappointment that Paw had gone to California to pick grapes. [[60]]
THE SILVER LEDGE ON THE FRIO
By J. Frank Dobie
This legend and others were given me in the summer of 1922 by Mr. Whitley, a small ranchman of McMullen County. At that time, he was more than seventy years old, though he was still an eager and agile horseman. From his front gallery one could see the San Caja Mountain, which his land ran against. We began talking on the subject of buried treasure a little after dark, and it was long after midnight before he suggested that we “unroll our blankets.” When I think of the place, the time, the man, his tones—the whole environment in which these as well as other legends were told, I realize that the most faithful transcription of the words can give hardly more than a shadow of the original effect.