Cherokee outlaw and gang leader Bill Cook turned rogue at a very young age. He and his younger brother Jim joined with a famous Indian outlaw and cold-blooded killer, Cherokee Bill Goldsby, to form the notorious Bill Cook-Cherokee Bill gang of outlaws. Together they were responsible for numerous killings and train, stage, and bank robberies in the Cherokee and Creek Nations. In the Ardmore train holdup, in addition to the loot taken from the passengers, the outlaws took $62,000 from the express car in greenbacks, gold coins, and silver coins.
With a sheriff's posse in close pursuit the gang split up to later meet at the Creek Nation hideout. Bill Cook, carrying the loot, decided to bury it in a patch of manganese boulders near Delaware Creek on the old Kildare ranch southwest of Clarita, Oklahoma, at a place referred to as McMillan pasture. Later the area became the old Dodson and Simmons farms. A number of hunters have supposedly searched the area but a find has never been reported.
