The Field of Silver

After the return of Ponce de Leon from his vain search for the Fountain of Youth, several of his adventurous voyageurs, hearing the stories of the fabulous wealth which, like a mirage before the vision of the parched traveler, disappeared only to appear again, concluded to make a second journey into the wilderness. Replenishing their stores they recrossed the Gulf of Mexico and landed near the Balize, under the leadership of Vaisco Bazaare, one hundred strong. They were clothed in beautiful armor, and their weapons were the most effective that date afforded.

The company struck the Mississippi river near where the city of New Orleans is now located and followed that stream until their course was obstructed by another stream, on account of the peculiar color of which they named the Red river. Here they met a band of Indians who manifested great fear, believing the Spaniards to be descendants from the sun, and as a propitiation which they believed was required the Indians built a great fire upon which they intended sacrificing several of their maidens. The sacrilegious sacrifice was interrupted by a conference obtained through an Indian boy whom Bazaare had secured from de Leon. After learning the nature of their strange visitors the Indians indicated their pleasure at the meeting by many evidences of friendship. Bazaare showed them pieces of silver and by aid of the interpreter explained to them that he and his followers were in search of that precious metal. The chief of the tribe told the Spaniards that towards the north, near the source of another river which flowed into the one on the banks of which they were encamped, there was a large and beautiful field of silver but that it was guarded by the spirits of the mountain, at the base of which the field lay. The chief charged the white adventurers not to attempt the exploration of the silver country, for around the mysterious land there was a fatal vapor which poisoned everything that came within its misty circle.

The Spaniards took no regard for the danger they were told of and, on the following morning, they crossed Red river in the canoes kindly furnished by the natives and, being directed in their course, in a few days they struck the stream (the Ouachita), near the head of which the Indians told them was the Field of Silver.

Their journey lay mostly through an uneven country, and the progress was slow and painful. At length they pitched their camp upon a level plain, through which flowed the bright blue river and, in the distance, they beheld the mountains, raising up their sun-clothed heads like the leviathan in his gambols.

In the purple of the morning the Spaniards saw the gray mists circling and expanding, and in the vapory rifts were gleams of light like burnished silver. Then their hearts grew gladsome and the cross was lifted, while the forest re-echoed the first sound it had ever caught of the devotional Te Deum. The camp was hurriedly folded and the journey taken towards the mist of the valley, which bathed the feet of the mountains.

There before them lay the Field of Silver, bare and desolate in its solitude, with no motion save the vapor which moved about it, and the gleams of light that were shooting from it. Who would dare to enter this Field of Silver, to cross the fatal vapor line and pluck the precious metal from its ancient bed? Then the Priest, with his crozier uplifted, in the name of God and Ferdinand, strode across the vapor, but the Field of Silver melted, while the circling mists rose upward and the Priest, with all the Spaniards, were left standing among the rocks and pine trees.

Though Bazaare was disappointed, yet his heart beat with his purpose, and in the field of beautiful mirage the Spaniards pitched their tents and, with tools provided, they dug the earth for silver. Their labor was rewarded, for scarcely had they reached a man's depth when they found the ore so rich that it needed little smelting. These hardy adventurers toiled with well-paid labor, and each day carried the product of the digging to the river (the Ouachita), where they built boats to send the precious metal to the Gulf, from whence it could be transported to Spain. But although a shaft was sunk to the depth of a hundred feet, the boats were not quite loaded, yet the share of each was now a fortune.

In the mountains there was a tribe of Indians called the Shoshgones [sic], whose fierce chief was always bent on cruel deeds. He had seen the Spaniards working but believed they were children of the sun-God, who could dispel the poison vapor of the sun-field. But this delusion was dispelled by an accident which cost the life of a Spaniard whose remains were buried in the sight of the cruel chief.

At midnight shortly after, when the moon had left the heavens, Bazaare was awakened by the footsteps of a little Indian maiden. Quickly, when the torch was lighted, by many strange and curious gestures she told the Spanish leader how the chief had planned his murder and the death of all his comrades; that when the next full moon ascended it was the signal for the slaughter and to slay and spare not was the order.

In the early morning Bazaare told the warning of the little Indian maiden and ordering the shaft filled up with stones, they broke their camp, marked well the location, gained their boats and casting away stole down the river. For many days they drifted, until at last they reached the gulf and, coasting along the shore when the weather was propitious, they reached at length the Keys of Florida. Meeting here with returning voyagers they shipped for Spain carrying with them a large and ample treasure.

These hardy Spaniards never returned to America again, but beside the blazing Yule-log they told their story to their children, and gave the marks of the location. Long years thereafter, when the boundary of the states had marked the confines of America's civilization, there appeared a man with no companions save his staff and compass, wending his tedious way along the banks of the Ouachita, observing the bends of the trees, the ledges of stones, and the pathway of the river. He was searching for the Field of Silver by the light of the legends of his fathers; the Field has disappeared but still there is silver for the digging.