After following Beale’s new wagon road from Fort Smith for nearly a week, the Wanderer writes details about his trip and observations so far in a letter dated Monday, August 22, 1859, from at his camp near North Fork Town. What follows describe his travels thru the Winchester mountains:
"Friday {Aug. 19} afternoon, as we were nearing the Winchester mountains, we stopped at Brookins' Spring to refresh our animals and ourselves before camping for the night."
"When we reached the Canadian {the next day, Saturday, Aug. 20} we called a halt and took a bath in the pool, where the North Fork unites with the main river. ... Spruced up, we soon got over the three and a half miles to North Fork town."
Who was Brookins? Wanderer writes:
"About the same time {"recently"}, a Creek killed Brookins, a white man, but a Choctaw citizen by marriage, ... shot him through the heart in bed in his own home ..." {Gov. Tandy Walker, Choctaw governor, wants the Creek captured and shot.}
{The village of Brooken, now thanks to Lake Eufaula--Brooken Cove-- is an old Choctaw community prior to Oklahoma statehood. I cannot determine if Wanderer mis-translated Booken into Brookins, but I do know that Tandy Walker was mis-translated Sandy Walker. So, it is plausible.}