My grandfather was a man in whom the spirit of adventure was strong. He had left his plantation to the direction of his wife while he went adventuring into the California gold fields in ’49. Consequently Moro was able to catch his interest by the story of buried treasures down on the Rio Grande, and Grandfather consented to go if he were allowed to make up his own party. The party as finally organized consisted of friends and neighbors, most of whom were well-to-do planters, but there was one man included somewhat out of the social class of the others, though well known and trusted throughout the neighborhood. To this man Moro objected strenuously, saying that he would [[107]]either prevent their finding the treasure, or if it were found, would murder them all to get the whole for himself. Grandfather insisted, and the man went.
Moro was nervous and sulky from the start, and so aroused the suspicions of the party that by the time they reached the Rio Grande, he was not allowed out of sight. But despite the close watch kept upon him, he finally made his escape by diving from one of the boats in which the party was crossing the Rio Grande to the point where he said the treasure was to be found. The man whom Moro feared would have shot him as he appeared above the surface of the water if Grandfather had not prevented.
There was nothing left for the party to do but return home, for Moro had given them no map or directions that would enable them to make an independent search. But before setting out on the return, Grandfather foolishly accepted a dare to swim the river in a very wide place, and in doing so caught a severe cold that developed into “galloping consumption,” from which he died a few months later.
The rest of the story, so far as there is any, is confused and contradictory. A few weeks before Grandfather’s death, some of the negroes on the place came to the house, begging for relief from Moro’s ghost, which was seen almost nightly digging at various spots on the plantation, but most often near the big fig tree in the field.
Grandfather was too ill to make any investigation for himself, but he questioned the negroes closely, and came to the conclusion that all the stories had grown out of one real incident—that Moro had probably come back to recover money that he had buried on the place.
The man whom Moro feared went to Mexico to escape service in the Confederate Army, and his sudden rise to fortune, coupled with a wild story he told on his return of having met with Moro in Mexico, convinced my grandmother that he had in some way come into possession of the treasure.
Judge McLean, who was a member of the original party, believed the story of buried money on the Rio Grande to be nothing more than a ruse on the part of Moro, representing a band of border outlaws, to kidnap Grandfather and hold him for a ransom. He was very positive that he saw Moro hanged as a Yankee spy during the Civil War, while he was stationed on the border near Rio Grande City. [[108]]
The legend of buried money still lingers around the old plantation of Buena Vista.[1] About ten years after the Civil War, my father bought the part of the plantation on which the home was situated, and during the years that he lived there was much annoyed by treasure seekers who begged permission to dig for “Moro’s gold,” or who came at night and dug without permission. In telling me the story, as he had heard it from various members of my mother’s family and from the negroes on the place, he expressed his belief that Moro had at one time buried money there. He told me that one day as he was showing a “free negro” how to run a straight furrow in the field not far from the old fig tree, the horse stumbled and his right foreleg sank in the ground up to the shoulder. The thought of Moro’s gold seems not to have entered my father’s mind at the time, but later he remembered it, and said that he was convinced that if there had ever been any money buried on the plantation it was in that spot. [[109]]
[1] For a brief account of “Moro’s Gold,” see Rose, Victor M., Some Historical Facts in Regard to the Settlement of Victoria, Texas, Laredo [1883?], pp. 36–37.—Editor. [↑]