Even though it be true that old Adobe Walls was established by Major William Bent and his associates, a tradition remains that they merely seized upon a site that had been occupied at an even earlier day by men of whom nothing is known, save that they are believed to have come from the Spanish settlements in New Mexico. There are traditions of buried treasure at Adobe Walls, and strangers have appeared there in search of it. One of these treasure-hunters was an old gray-haired man who came after the country had been settled. His story was that a pack train loaded with gold and silver bullion had been attacked at this place by Indians. In its extremity, the besieged party buried the bullion. Only one or two members of the expedition escaped massacre, among the slain being a Catholic priest. The old man in search of the treasure was too feeble to do the physical work of digging, and tried to hire men to work for him. He was looked upon as slightly demented, and could get no assistance. He departed without finding the buried fortune. Subsequently, his story was revived, and men living in the locality made numerous excavations, but found nothing. The day after we camped on Bent Creek, several of the boys rode northeast, to look over the country. Upon their return, they reported that there was an excellent site for a permanent camp on the next creek, about a mile and a half further on, so we pulled up the valley and began unloading our wagons on the bare ground in a broad valley where there was a pretty stream called East Adobe Walls Creek. This was to become a spot memorable to all of us. Myers & Leonard built a picket house twenty by sixty feet in size. James Hanrahan put up a sod house, twenty-five by sixty, in which he opened a saloon. Thomas O'Keefe built a blacksmith's shop of pickets, fifteen feet square. Thus, a little town was sprouting in the wilderness--a place where we could buy something to eat and wear, something to drink, ammunition for our guns, and a place where our wagons, so necessary in expeditions like ours, could be repaired. While all this hammering and pounding and digging was going on, I started with three companions and rode the country as far down as where the present town of Clarendon, Texas, now stands. We were absent about fifteen days, and upon our return we found the buildings about finished. We did not see many buffaloes on this trip. Maybe the buffaloes had scented Indians. We ranged as far east as Cantonment Creek, and on its east prong encountered a few scattering bulls. The season was too early for the cows and bulls to begin mating and running together.