Barton Thorn

 is person living in the Mojave Wasteland in 2281.

Background
The player can encounter him by traveling east from Goodsprings. He will confront the player, asking for the Courier to save his girl (unmarked quest), who is trapped by geckos on the ridge above. Upon clearing the ridge he will admit he tricked the player, and try to kill them in order to gain access to a stash of ammunition.

If you have the Animal Friend perk you obviously don't have to kill the geckos, but he will still say "Thanks for clearing out the geckos for me."

The radio tower spoken of is around the rocks and to the right. Keep your eyes peeled for all the ingredients in the area. The stash in question is not very valuable and belonged to a man named Johnny (if you have Wild Wasteland his corpse will be present, if not a Prospector corpse may be here instead). When approaching the stash be cautious of the bear traps (x3) on the ground, tripping just two of them is enough to kill the player on normal difficulty (depending on starting Endurance).

Video Walk-through
There is a video walk-through at Gaming Drunk

Appearances
appears in Fallout: New Vegas.