Pete Kassetas, the chief of the New Mexico State Police, called on Mr. Fenn to end the hunt, saying that lives were being put at risk.
In an email, Mr. Fenn said he had no plans to call it off.
“It is always tragic when someone dies, and this latest loss hit me very hard,†he said on Tuesday, in response to questions about Mr. Wallace’s death.
“Life is too short to wear both a belt and suspenders,†he said. “If someone drowns in the swimming pool we shouldn’t drain the pool, we should teach people to swim.â€
Mr. Wallace’s death came more than a year after the disappearance of Randy Bilyeu, another seeker enchanted by the idea of Mr. Fenn’s treasure. Mr. Bilyeu’s remains were found in the Rio Grande about seven months after he disappeared.
There have been other close calls. In 2013, Chanon Thompson, a Texas woman searching for the treasure in New Mexico, got lost near Bandelier National Monument and spent a frigid night in the wilderness. She was rescued the next day.
Mr. Fenn has said that the treasure is somewhere in the Rocky Mountains and 5,000 feet above sea level, a suggestion that has tempted people into some of the more unsparing wilderness in the southwest. He recently specified that it is not in an area that an 80-year-old would find difficult to gain access to.
Mr. Bilyeu’s ex-wife, Linda Bilyeu, who first reported his disappearance, has since said that Mr. Fenn’s treasure was a scam and a hoax. On Tuesday, she too called for Mr. Fenn to end the search. “He’s endangering lives for his own selfish reasons,†she said.
Mr. Fenn said he planned to change the hunt in some way, but had no details yet.
“I am thinking of ways to make the search for my treasure safer, and expect to make an announcement in the next few days,†he said.
Mr. Fenn, 86, is a cheerful eccentric whose Santa Fe gallery attracted frequent visits from an eclectic group of celebrities in the 1970s and 1980s. A 1986 profile in People magazine reported that President Gerald Ford, the former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, and entertainers like Robert Redford, Cher and Steve Martin were among the customers paying high prices for oil paintings and Native American art and artifacts.
He dreamed up the treasure hunt several years after that profile was published, when he learned he had kidney cancer. Originally, he had planned to have himself interred with the buried riches, but after recovering from the disease, he decided to create the treasure hunt. And so, he said, shortly before publishing “The Thrill of the Chase,†he went out alone and buried the treasure. In a New York Times profile last year, he estimated that it was worth $2 million.
There were no witnesses, he said. The tens of thousands of people who have joined the search are relying entirely on Mr. Fenn’s word, and the clues contained in his poem, for guidance.
Several websites obsessively track the hunt. Jenny Kile, who runs one, Mysterious Writings, sends her “heart and prayers†to Mr. Wallace’s loved ones, but fiercely defends the merits of the mystery.
“There are tragedies and risks in everything we do,†she said. “And although authorities and other disparaging people want to point the finger, ‘The Thrill of the Chase’ is in no way the blame for loss of life or accidents which happen during the chase. Most people understand this.
“I believe the greater tragedy of life is not living it,†she said. “It is more harmful NOT to encourage people to chase dreams and not to encourage them to go live an extraordinary life filled with adventure and fun.â€
That sentiment echoed Mr. Fenn’s. Growing up, he spent most of his summers in Yellowstone National Park, and he was shot down twice in Vietnam, where he flew 328 combat missions in 348 days.
“As bad as it was, it was my great adventure and it taught me that life is precious,†he said of those near-misses. “When I die I want it to be because I’m all used up.â€
Critics, including Ms. Bilyeu, disagree. In a strong rebuke last summer, after her ex-husband’s body was recovered, she suggested to the local news media that the treasure hunt had warped his priorities and that she believed his “mind was manipulated.†She stands by the statement today.
“I’ve heard so many times that Randy died doing what he loved to do,†she said at the time. “That is false. What he loved to do was spend time with his family and friends.â€
But Mr. Fenn argued that adventure and family are not mutually exclusive.
“Even the most sedate among us has some sense of adventure lurking in the back of their mind,†he said.
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