Our horses were now in a lather, and rapidly breaking down. Rounding a little knoll, we saw Campbell lying on the ground and rolling from side to side, as if in acute pain. Perhaps he had been shot. Upon reaching him, we found to our inexpressible rage and disgust that his paroxysms were caused by laughter--he said that he had not seen an Indian all that day; just wanted to play a trick on us. We made Campbell swear not to tell the other boys; he kept his word. CHAPTER VII. We had lots of fun sky-larking in our camp on Moore's Creek, but spring was coming on, and it was our wish to establish a permanent camp at the best possible place. Unconsciously, we were drawn to that place as other men, long, long before us, had been drawn, and which we reached by pulling right down the river bottom about twelve miles to what was then called West Adobe Walls Creek but which is now called Bent Creek. The latter is a beautiful stream, clear and swift. About a mile from its mouth stood the old ruins of the original Adobe Walls. Here we stopped and camped for the night. We had heard of these ruins ever since we had been in the Plains country. They were of great interest to us, and we carefully examined them, wondering what men in such a far-off day had ventured to establish themselves here, and why they had done so. We were not acquainted with the history of the place. We thought of Mexicans and different Indian tribes of the southwest. As a matter of fact, there are the remains of villages and old burial grounds on Wolf Creek in the Panhandle which men who claim to know about such things declare are the remains of the easternmost extension of the Pueblo civilization. I have no opinion in the matter. [Illustration: _"Billy" Dixon's Log Homestead on Site of Original Adobe Walls._] When we first saw Adobe Walls, there were parts of walls still standing, some being four or five feet high. The adobe bricks were in an excellent state of preservation. Many different stories have been told about this place and its origin. While I was hunting buffaloes in southern Kansas I met up with a man named Charley Powell who had been a soldier in the Third Cavalry. He told me that in 1863, when they were going from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Fort Bascom, New Mexico, the trail lay on the south of the Canadian, opposite Adobe Walls. The soldiers crossed over and looked at the ruins. Even at that time none of the buildings was standing.