“ Then followed the legend in the time-honored style sacred to legendary lore, impossible for me to imitate.
A more charming landscape cannot be found than the hills and dales of Bandera County. The Indians loved this country, and every year resorted thither, to fish in the waters of the Medina and to hunt deer and turkeys on the mountains. But their intentions were not always so peaceful, and Texas Rangers were not infrequently called upon to protect the few white settlers who were bold enough to call this region home. ”

“ At [155] night spirit fires dance on the summit, and by day millions of isinglass stars glint in the sunlight. During an early morning shower in the hills, when the sun shines out from under the passing cloud, the streams of water coursing down the sides of the massive boulder resemble sheets of molten silver. Then above the gigantic dome there forms a rainbow-path which will lead the seeker directly to a mine of gold, so the old legend goes. In fact, the sands of the sluggish stream winding lazily around the base of the rock testify of gold in the vicinity. ”

“ Yet often at night when the tempest howls and the thunders roar, his form, or shadow, or image, or whatever it be, is seen to stride this valley in which we ride, on his swift bob-tail nag. When a Buckner’s Creek baby cries, whether from pure perverseness or from colic, only say to him ‘Strap Buckner’ once, and he will forthwith scrooch up in his cradle, and you will hear no more from that baby for hours. ”

“ The struggle was as fierce as opposing forces ever waged. Indian and Caucasian fell together, with the cold steel in each other’s breasts, and their mingled blood crimsoned the grass-spears and the daisies. There was a hush; a little flag bearing the Stars and Stripes shot up just as the sun was setting. From the overhanging cliff a scream of agony rent the air. Laughing-Eye understood and leaped upon the rocks below, into the arms of death.
1 This legend is reprinted from a small pamphlet called Santa Anna Beautiful, published by Clay P. Morgan, Santa Anna, Texas, 1907. ”

“ He would drink no whiskey, and would knock no man down. Finally, one night, a great blue flame rose far above the valley, and cast a pale, deathly light over the land. On the top of the blue flame appeared a great gray nag, and astride him sat the dread form of a red monkey, and behind the red monkey sat the form of a gigantic man waving a gigantic iron pestle, whereat the dread form of the red monkey seemed to cower. When morning arose, Strap’s house was in ashes and cinders. ”

“ Strap’s fame greatly arose, insomuch that men looked upon him in awe, and maidens and strong women pined in secret admiration. He became a great hunter, using no other weapon but his fist and an iron pestle, or mace. About this time also Strap became addicted to strong drink and grew boisterous, to such a degree that people shunned him in spite of his kindly nature. No man would meet him alone; but when he was seen approaching, men would shut themselves up in their houses, or collect in knots, all with guns and pistols cocked. Strap now determined that he would seek other fields of glory. ”

“ The Bowie Mine is all a myth. I was personally acquainted with a man who, I knew, had been with Bowie on his expedition into the San Saba hills. One evening when a crowd of us young fellows were smoking our pipes around the fire, this old adventurer related unusually marvelous tales of the Bowie Mine and its rich silver ore, which, he said, could just be ‘hacked off with a hatchet.’ The entire crowd became wild with enthusiasm in consequence of his tales, and immediately resolved to fit out an expedition to search for the lost mine. ”

“ She laid three polished arrows at her feet and stood for a moment looking up into the sky, while the moonlight glittered on her shining ornaments, and the blooming white yucca that surrounded her gleamed like silver. She turned toward the west and, pointing to a star, wonderfully brilliant in spite of the moonlight, exclaimed, “That star is my home! I go there!”
Her listeners, almost breathless from amazement, were men accustomed to danger; it was their daily duty to meet it. ”

“ Once two tribes of Indians living far to the north were at deadly enmity with one another; one tribe lived in what is now Oklahoma, the other in what is now the Panhandle of Texas. One day the son of the chieftain of the southern tribe was walking in the woods. It was springtime, the time to be in the woods, and there he met the daughter of the chief of the northern tribe. It was springtime; their hatred was forgotten, and often thereafter they met under the trees. But one day a brave of the northern tribe discovered the lovers. ”

“ At an early date, when Spanish miners were gathering great quantities of gold in Mexico, a company of them, in search of further treasure, had wandered far to the northwest, taking with them a large store of the precious metal. In their wanderings, directed by some Indian or by their own keen instinct for such things, the Spanish had located the copper mines on the Brazos and had proceeded to work them. In some way they aroused the hostility of the native Indians and were in danger of massacre. They hastily hid their treasure and escaped for their lives. ”

“ Laughing-Eye gave the signal for battle by waving a branch of cedar from the brow of Las Mesas, and a savage yell went up, as fierce as mortal ever heard. Fox-Deer led his warriors forth, playing for two of the highest earthly stakes—the happiness of his daughter and his own life. In an instant the whites were surrounded. The Indians, riding at full speed and lying low on the off-side of their ponies, poured volley after volley of deadly arrows into their dismayed ranks. ”

“ But he was afraid and so were his parents to touch the coins, and of course they would no longer consider a purchase. The white animal was the soul of the dead owner of the treasure there to watch over it.
However, it is rather strange that Antonio and his parents took none of the money, for a white object (un bulto blanco) is a good spirit, and a white cat, a white calf, a white dog, or a white mule, or a woman dressed all in white may appear to people to lead them to buried treasure. But if un bulto negro appears, let them look out! ”

“ Back in the days when range men paid in coin rather than in checks, a certain cattle buyer on one of the big ranches of Northwest Texas is believed to have been murdered for his money and his body put away in a shack or dugout near the principal round-up grounds of the ranch. After the murder, whenever an outfit tried to hold a herd of cattle on these grounds at night, they were sure to have a stampede. Cowboys reported many times having seen the murdered man’s ghost wandering about among the cattle in the darkness and, of course, stampeding them. ”

“ And then a sweet gentleness stole into his eyes, as his better spirit spoke to him in a soft voice: ‘Ah, Strap, hast thou not glory enough? Hast thou not knocked down many times nearly every man in Texas ... even the great Austin and the mighty king Tuleahcahoma? ”

“ I have at last learned one complete version of the legend of the Montezuma Cave. It cost me seven hours’ hard work, a delay of twenty-four hours in getting home, a deal of cheap drink, a headache, and the suspicion of my relatives; but the man who told me the story was alone worth the price. He is a broken-down newspaper man, “whose story is the story of every man that ever went down into Mexico. It is the story of a coward, the story of a man with a yellow streak down his back.” ”

“ The native Texan frequently makes no distinction between “Spaniard” and “Mexican”; the wealth of legend, however, is generally Spanish. And that wealth would fade the actual riches of Potosi into paltriness. Now, how comes it that illimitable wealth is so popularly ascribed to the long Spanish dominion in Texas and to the brief Mexican occupation that intervened between the downfall of Spanish sovereignty and the achievement of Texas independence? Were the Spanish great gainers in Texas? Did Santa Anna’s armies mark their trail with gold? ”

“ At last she arose, and stooping to lift from the smouldering fire within the tepee a bit of wood, one end of which was a glowing coal, she slipped out into the night. Under the twinkling, frosty stars she knelt, and prayed that her offering might be accepted and the fact of the acceptance made known to her.
Then blinking her eyes to keep back the tears, which an Indian child early learns must never be shed, she made a fire of twigs and grasses, and thrust her beloved papoose deep down into the glowing heart of the blaze, till the last bit of skin and shred of feather were consumed to ashes. ”

“ To seek El Dorado, the conquistadores for a hundred years and more marched and countermarched from one extremity of half of the western hemisphere to the other, spending the lives of tens of thousands of men and the wealth of prodigal treasuries, enduring starvation, fever, cold, thirst, the pests of swamps and the pitilessness of deserts—all with an intrepidity that comes now in our tame “Safety First” age like a stirring cup brewed by the giants. At first a man, El Dorado came to mean a place somewhere in the western part of what is now Colombia, then in any, every direction. ”

“ Many years ago, in the northern part of Texas, lived a small band of Indians among whom were a young brave and a young maiden lost in love. For the sake of convenience, we shall call the young brave Running Elk and the maiden Laughing Water. She was the daughter of old Chief White Eagle, but in the veins of the warrior lover there was no royal blood, and the father refused to allow the marriage that both of the lovers so greatly desired.
The refusal was not, however, based primarily on the difference in rank. Running Elk was an ideal young brave. ”

“ Thus the tale of a captive Indian, who wanted to get back eastward, led Coronado from the empty pueblos of the Zuñi in Arizona, whither he had been guided by an ignorant negro in search of the Seven Cities of Cibola, to make his astounding march on eastward all the way to Kansas in quest of the Gran Quivira26—a place that never existed, a people that wandered naked at the heels of the drifting buffalo. [9]
The imagination of simple-lived folk abhors failure, and the poorest in circumstances are the richest in legend of treasure. A remote disaster becomes a hope for present success. ”

“ Here he ‘tried to be good,’ but finally again began knocking men down, and knocked down the Indians and even the chief and his ‘queen’ and the chief’s daughter. The Indian chief admired him so much that he presented him with the swiftest horse he had, a gray nag. This recognition of ‘his genius’ so aroused the spirits of Strap that he became gloriously drunk and declared himself ‘the Champion of the World’ and challenged any and everybody to fight—the whole Indian tribe, the Devil himself. ”

“ While the red man was in search of game, the good spirit would direct his arrows straight toward the mark; and while he was on the war path, this good spirit would also help him to defeat his enemies.
Now, during early days, a tribe of Indians were roaming over this rich country, killing big game with their arrows and big fish with their spears. And in this tribe, as in every tribe, was a medicine man. This medicine man had a beautiful daughter who had been asked to become the first squaw of the brave young chief. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They will illustrate the fertility in buried treasure legend of all that stretch of Texas, for the most part yet unploughed, lying towards the Rio Grande and populated by Mexicans and by Texans of frontier stock. McMullen County itself has as yet neither railroad nor bank. The people are as yet unhackneyed by the plow or commercial secretary. They still talk a language seasoned with Mexican idiom and honest with the soil’s honesty; they have their old-time dances; they welcome heartily any decent stranger. ”

“ He was used to digging post holes with a crowbar and a tin can, and so he went to a mesquite tree where the tools were kept and got the crowbar.
But the crowbar would no more dig into the hard substance than the spade would. The sun was mighty hot, anyhow; so the Mexican went up to the house where el señor Berry was whittling sticks on his gallery, and told him that he couldn’t dig any more, that at the third post hole from the south gate it looked as if the devil himself had humped up into a rock that nothing could get through. ”

“ Morris’ the lover moved to a small island in the stream, and there lived. At his death his violin and bow were buried with him, and still he plays strange, sweet music.
Another version of the love legend has been contributed by Miss Sarah S. King of San Antonio, who heard the story from Miss Arline Rather. In it the maiden was accustomed to go to the stream each evening for water, and there to meet her lover. One day an arrow struck her down. Her lover, approaching, called and played his liveliest tunes, and then found her dead in the waist-high ferns. ”

“ Henceforth the Indians came and went peacefully, committing no depredations, and unmolested by the white men. At a certain season of each year, they placed flint arrowheads and beads of many colors in the grave of their most noted chief and planted a peace feather at its head. In the long ago, he and his tribe had resisted the Spanish invasion and he had fallen, mortally wounded, in battle against them. On a high cliff overlooking Bandera Pass, his grave could still be seen thirty years ago. ”

“ According to legend, much money has been found. I myself know of a few small finds. I know of eight hundred Mexican dollars having been found under a mesquite tree in Atascosa County many years ago; I know of about four hundred dollars in Mexican coin that were rooted up by hogs in Frio County forty years ago. Doubtless other actual finds over the country could be recorded. Whatever the facts, few men of imagination can listen to the enthusiasm of the true treasure hunter without becoming infected with his glamour. ”