The Mena weekly star., 1897-08-18
The Cow Creek Treasure.
 An Engineers Story of Dream and Bags of Silver.
nREIDwAY between the stations O

nU lDNAl between the stations of
 IVI Lyons and Ellinwood on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railway in Kansas the road crosses Cow creek flowing southward into the Arkansas river" said a western civil engineer who was visiting New York. He was one of little company the other night in which the conversation had turned to the subject of hidden treasure. The creek is of no great account in low water, though when it gets on the ram- page after cloudburst or heavy rains it is apt to tear things loose. Its prin- cipal interest to me was in the story of the tragedy enacted there many years ago and the traditions extant among old Kansas of buried treasure along it's banks.
 ''The tragedy was the murder of New Mexico merchant, Jose Chavez, in the summer of 1s37, by band of bri- gands styling themselves Texans. It was perpetrated while New Mexico was still q state of the Mexican republic and Texas was fighting with Mexico to secure her independence. Chavez, com ing eastward over the Santa Fe trail with wagon train, bringing sacks of Mexican dollars to exchange for mer- chandise, was surprised by II men at Cow creek, who captured his outfit and afterward killed him. They plundered his wagons of the silver and rode away sRith their booty. From the weight of fine silver taken it seemed impossible that they should have carried all of it far on horseback, and the general be- lief has been that they buried part of it near the scene of their crime, intend ing to return for it at another time Tradition has always located the hid den treasure in the valley of Cow creek. It is supposed that none of the robbers ever got back to recover it, for as soon as the news of their crime got abroad they were closely pursued and most of them caught and hanged by the United States authorities.
 Some years after the railroad was built was staying for few days near the point where it crosses the creek, en- gagged with my party in doing some sur veying for the company. Among my assistants was an American of German descent whom we knew as Fritz-a laundering, miss, impractical fel- low, who served somewhat as a butt for the wit of the others. He was with us one evening when the story of the mur- der of Chavez and the supposed hiding of the treasure was told. Some time that night Fritz got up, dressed him. self, and left the house. His room mate, partly waking, heard him nov ing about, but without accosting him went to sleep again. In the course of four hours Fritz returned. this time waking his roommate completely. He seemed bewildered. saying that he had been to the place where the buried treas ure was, but had lost his way coming back. In the morning he gave such an account of his wanderings as left no doubt Tn my mind that he had walked from the house in his sleep. and had not walxened until some time after his ar- rival at the point where he had stopped, and from which he had undertaken to make his way back home.
 "At this place, he said, he found him. self standing iii the bottom land beside creek. watching some horsemen who had dismounted and were digging a hole in the ground. When apparently they had got the hole deep enough they lifted F sacks from the ground. dropped them into the excavation and reflled 1t, stamping the earth down solidly with their feet and then laying upon the earth the sods they had cut from the surface in the beginning There were other bags on the ground, similar to those put in the hole, and each man taking bag upon his saddle they remounted and rode fast toward the southeast
 He watched them antil they were out Of sight, and then went to the place where they had worked and stood on the sods that had been taken out and