I am indebted for this legend to Mr. Bob Nutt of Sabinal. Once in the
early days a band of men who were going across the Plains to trade in
New Mexico were attacked by Indians somewhere near the present town of
Wichita Falls. They made a corral of their wagons and fought off the
Indians as long as they could, but when night came they were so thinned
in numbers and the Indians were so strong that they decided to break
for their lives. They broke, and all but one man were speedily
overtaken, killed, and scalped.
The man who escaped saved his life by stumbling into a hole that lay
concealed near a little ravine. It was a kind of pothole with rounded
pebbles at the bottom; among them the man soon noticed what looked like
gold. He was in a hole of gold nuggets! He remained there for three
days, and during all that time he was sorting the nuggets from the
rocks, digging out the gravelly bottom with his bare hands. He said
afterward that there must have been a barrel of the nuggets. Finally,
when he could no longer hear Indians, he peeped out. Seeing that the
way was clear, he bundled up what nuggets he could carry and set out
for a distant fort. The Indians had burned all the supplies, with the
wagons, and on his way to the fort he nearly starved. He had his gun
but he was afraid to disclose his whereabouts by shooting at game. At
length he grew so weak that he had to throw away all the gold but two
or three specimen nuggets. He was hardly conscious of the loss when at
last he staggered into the army walls.
It was several years before he could get back into the Wichita country.
Meanwhile, day and night, he never ceased to think of the hole of gold
nuggets. The country around it was pictured clear in his memory. The
exact spot would be located by the irons of the burned wagons. For a
long time the man was afraid to tell his secret. At last he returned,
but no hill or draw of the region seemed familiar, and he could never
come upon the wagon irons or the pothole of nuggets. Some years ago he
died in Wichita Falls, leaving his descendants a few nuggets that bore
testimony to the truth of his often told tale.