Snively’s second expedition belongs in a large way to lost treasure
lore. In Hunter’s Magazine for January, 1911, page 5, John Warren
Hunter has an article on “The Schnively Expedition,” in which he quotes
“Bud” (W. H.) Robinson’s account of the two gold hunting expeditions
that Snively and Colonel William C. Dalrymple, of Williamson County,
organized in 1867 and 1868. The first was made up of only sixteen men
and was turned back by the Indians; the second, much larger, was able
to ward off the Indians, but it could not locate the gold that had been
so luringly promised by Snively.
“From the Pecos,” says Robinson as quoted by Hunter, “the expedition
went forward and finally reached Eagle Springs, not a great distance
from the Rio Grande. This was to be our camping place, as Mr. Schnively
had told us that the gold mine was in the vicinity of the springs. He
said he had first received information from a dying soldier touching
the existence of gold in the region and later he had prospected and
found the mine. He knew right where to go to point out the location, he
said.”
But evidently Snively did not know. His men came to believe that he had
never before visited the place but had raised the expedition in order
to have protection in his prospecting. In anger and in disappointment
the expedition broke up, the men scattering to the four winds. And here
my informant, the old Texas Ranger, takes up the tale. Some of the men,
he says, came back home; some went on to California and to Colorado;
some continued prospecting in a westerly direction. Three of them got
lost in the desert, and while trying to make their way to the Rio
Grande came into what must have been the Apache Canyon.
In that canyon they stumbled upon two Mexican carts loaded with gold
bullion. About were the bleached skeletons of men and oxen, the remains
of some old Spanish gold plundering expedition that had perished in the
desert. Some men used to say that Coronado’s men must have started back
with this gold. The three Texans loaded themselves with the precious
metal, but before very long they had to cast it away in their struggle
to reach water. Fortunately, they did reach water and were saved. Later
they equipped themselves and went back into the desert to take the
immense wealth. They could never find it. Landmarks are scarce in that
country. Very likely, too, the shifting sands of the desert had covered
the wagons with their freight of gold. They may be uncovered some day;
if so, it will likely be for only a day or an hour, and the man who
sees them will probably be perishing for water, so that the sight of
them and the white bones near will strike him as a terrible prophecy
rather than as a life-time of hope realized.