Steve
From what i remember , NP was fault only in the picture of the mission which he stated it's ruins are close to Burns ranch at the south end of Superstitions Mt.. But also then , the matter was not how the mission looked like , but if there ever existed one . Some people lost the esence of the story because were " hungry " to prove somebody wrong . Also that event , is not a motive to take all the other things NP wrote with a grain of salt .
All of us , along our treasure hunting " career " , have heard a lot of stories , some common and some " tall " . There don't exist any formula to distinguish the real tales from the " tall " , but the only way to the truth is the " boots on the ground ".
Can you prove , except the mission pic , how what another stories wrote NP were tall tales ?