When he had fully recovered, Andrews decided to make an effort to find John Reynolds and Stowe, who, he thought, had probably gone south to Santa Fe. Cochran gave him a horse, and leaving Denver under cover of darkness, he rode southward. Reaching Santa Fe, he soon found Reynolds and Stowe, and the three survivors decided to go up on the Cimarron, where they had cached a lot of silver and other plunder taken from the Mexican wagon train on the way out from Texas. Their horses giving out, they attacked a Mexican ranch to get fresh ones. During the fight Stowe was killed, but Reynolds and Andrews succeeded in getting a couple of fresh horses and making their escape. They rode on to the Cimarron, and found the stuff they had hidden, and then started back over the old trail for Texas. The second day out, they were overtaken by a posse of Mexicans from the ranch where they had stolen the horses, and after a running fight of two or three miles, Andrews was killed. Reynolds escaped down the dry bed of a small arroyo, and finally succeeded in eluding his pursuers. Returning to Santa Fe, he changed his name to Will Wallace, and lived there and in small towns in that vicinity for several years, making a living as a gambler. Tiring of the monotony of this kind of a life, Reynolds formed a partnership with another desperado by the name of Albert Brown, and again started out in the holdup business. They soon made that country too hot to hold them, and in October, 1871, they started toward Denver.
When near the Mexican town of Taos, they attempted to steal fresh horses from a ranch one night, and Reynolds was mortally wounded by two Mexicans, who were guarding the corral. Brown killed both of them, and throwing Reynolds across his horse, carried him for several miles. At length he found an abandoned dugout near a little stream. Leaving his wounded comrade there, he set out to conceal their horses after having made Reynolds as comfortable as possible. He found a little valley where there was plenty of grass and water, about two miles up the cañon. Leaving his horses there, he hastened back to the dugout, where he found Reynolds in a dying condition, and the conversation related in the first chapter of this story took place.
Reynold’s Map. Star shows location of treasure.
Brown pushed on northward to Pueblo, intending to push his way along the Arkansas on up into the park, but found that the snow was already too deep. Returning to Pueblo, he pushed on to Denver. He stayed there all winter, selling his horses and living upon the proceeds. When spring came he was broke, but had by chance made the acquaintance of J. N. Cochran, who had befriended John Andrews, one of the gang, years before. Finding that Cochran already knew a great deal about the gang, and needing some one who had money enough to prosecute the search, he decided to take Cochran into his confidence. Cochran was an old ’58 pioneer, and had been all over the region where the treasure was hidden, and knowing that Brown, who had never been in Colorado before, could not possibly have made so accurate a map of the locality himself, agreed to fit out an outfit to search for the treasure. They took the map drawn by Reynolds while dying, and followed the directions very carefully, going into the park by the stage road over Kenosha hill, then following the road down the South Platte to Geneva gulch, a small stream flowing into the Platte. Pursuing their way up the gulch, they were surprised at the absence of timber, except young groves of “quaking asp,” which had apparently grown up within a few years. They soon found that a terrible forest fire had swept over the entire region only a short time after the outlaws were captured, destroying all landmarks so far as timber was concerned.
They searched for several days, finding an old white hat, supposed to be Singletary’s, near where they supposed the battle to have taken place, and above there some distance a swamp, in which the bones of a horse were found, but they could not find any signs of a cave. Running out of provisions they returned to Denver, and after outfitting once more returned to the search, this time going in by way of Hepburn’s ranch. They found the skeleton of a man, minus the head (which is preserved in a jar of alcohol at Fairplay), supposed to be the remains of Owen Singletary. They searched carefully over all the territory shown on the map, but failed to find the treasure cave. Cochran finally gave up the search, and he and Brown returned again to Denver.
Brown afterward induced two other men to go with him on a third expedition, which proved as fruitless as the other two trips. On their return, Brown and his companions, one of whom was named Bevens and the other an unknown man, held up the coach near Morrison and secured about $3,000. Brown loafed around Denver until his money was all gone, when he stole a team of mules from a man in West Denver, and skipped out, but was captured with the mules in Jefferson county by Marshal Hopkins. Brown was brought to Denver and put in jail, while Gen. Cook was serving his second term as sheriff. When Sheriff Willoughby took charge in 1873, Brown slipped away from the jailer and concealed himself until he had an opportunity to escape. He went to Cheyenne, and from there to Laramie City, where he was killed in a drunken row.
Gen. Cook secured Brown’s map, and a full account of the outlaw’s career substantially as given here, and although he has had many opportunities to sell it to parties who wished to hunt for the treasure, he declined all of them, preferring rather to wait for the publication of this work. There is no question but that the treasure is still hidden in the mountain, and, although the topography of the country has been changed somewhat in the last thirty-three years by forest fires, floods and snow-slides, some one may yet be fortunate enough to find it.