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Separating Fact And Fiction By Andre Hinds From page 8 of the December 1986 issue of Lost Treasure magazine. Trying to separate treasure fact from treasure fiction is kind of hard to do, as is demonstrated in this issue. While Edgar Allan Poe's The Gold Bug, for instance, is purely derived from the mind of Poe, it most probably is based upon a real treasure the Beale Code Treasure, in which Thomas Beale left a coded message as instructions on finding the treasure. To this day the Beale treasure hasn't been found. There are such similarities in the Gold Bug and Beale Code stories that I'm sure Poe must have known about the Beale treasure legend. That's where all great treasure stories begin - with treasure legend. Recently, I was helping a friend edit a play she had written on Western outlaws that included a scene about the Dalton Gang. Just hearing again about the Dalton Gang took me back to my childhood. Among the first white settlers in the Tulsa, Okla. area, where I live, were the Dalton Gang. The other Tulsa residents probably didn't realize it at the time, though. The Dalton brothers - Emmet, Grat and Bob - had a hideout on a hill overlooking the Arkansas River and Tulsa, in an area now called Chandler Park. It was in Chandler Park where the Daltons spent their last night together before going to Coffeyville, Kan., to attempt something that had never been done before - to rob two banks at once. The Coffeyville residents recognized them, though, and two were shot and killed and the other spent 20 years in prison. Since I lived just a couple of miles from Chandler Park and the "Dalton Caves," as they were called, I had heard a lot about all the bank robbery loot they must have hidden up there. And, as a 12-year-old kid having just read Tom Sawyer, I was very willing when my friend David Shaw invited me on a treasure hunt for the Dalton loot. David prepared for the trip like an expert. He had hunting knives (in case of vicious animals), leather boots (in case of snakes) and a B-B gun (in case of skunks). Me, I brought the sandwiches (in case of hunger). We hiked all the way to the top of the hill on Chandler Park - a 2-mile trek from David's house. David got a lot of strange looks because of all the paraphernalia, but since we didn't want to arouse suspicion, we just said we were going 'coon hunting. We hiked the whole way, even though some people offered us rides. I tried to get David to go in the car, but he refused, insisting they would just jump our claim if we found the treasure. We made our way along the narrow trail down the gullies leading to the Dalton Caves. The Dalton Caves weren't really caves, as we discovered, but just inward slopes of rock, protected by sheer cliffs. From the looks of the Dalton's living quarters, it didn't take long to figure out that crime doesn't pay. There was little protection from the elements, no soft spots on the ground for sleeping and seemingly hundreds of insects and dangerous animals lurking in the area. But they did have a great view. They could have seen a lawman or a member of a rival gang riding up for miles. What they lacked in amenities, they made up for in security. I didn't feel so secure, however. It was beginning to get dark as David and I scratched around for the treasure we knew had to be there. Never did it come to our minds that the Dalton Gang treasure had been talked about and sought for 80 years and that, just maybe, someone had beaten us to the punch. When we didn't find the Dalton loot just lying on the ground, waiting for us, the treasure search became secondary to talking about things that were important to 12-year-olds friends, girls and what we were going to be when we grew up. As we ate the sandwiches I brought, David told me he wanted to be an outdoorsman - the kind of guy who showered in a waterfall, hiked up mountains and killed his own supper. I told him I just wanted to write stories - and maybe one day I'd write a story about our search for the Dalton treasure. Looking back on it about 20 years later, I realize it is true: No matter how fantastic they may sound, treasure stories are always based on something real. And sometimes the value of the treasure isn't always based on what you find, but what you experience to search for it.