“I sometimes use the weed, but not in that form,” I replied, handing a piece to him. He wrenched off a huge mouthful with a vigorous twist of his head, and returned it without a word. This done, he sank back to his former position and reverie. “Excuse me, friend,” said I, moving rather impatiently, and determined to force a conversation upon him, “but I hope you will permit a few questions?” “Go ahead, stranger,” he answered, gruffly. “Are you traveling alone in this section?” “I reckon I ar’, ’cept the hoss which ’ar a team.” “Follow trapping and hunting, I presume?” “What’s yer handle, stranger?” he suddenly asked, as he came to the upright position, and looking at me with more interest. “William Relmond, from New Jersey.” “Whar’s that place?” “It is one of the Middle States, quite a distance from here.” “What mought you be doin’ in these parts?” “I and my friend out yonder are on our way to Oregon.” “Umph! you’re pretty green ’uns.” “Now I suppose you will have no objection to giving me your name.” “My handle’s Bill Biddon, and I’m on my way to trappin’-grounds up country.” “How far distant?” “A heap; somewhar up ’bove the Yallerstone.” “Do you generally go upon these journeys alone?” [Illustration: “What’s your handle, stranger?”] “Sometimes I does, and sometimes I doesn’t.” I ceased my questions for a few moments, for fear of provoking him. As his route, as far as it extended, would be in our direction, I determined to keep his company if I could gain his consent. He was a splendid specimen of the physical man. He was rather short, but heavy and thick-set, with a compactness of frame that showed a terrible strength slumbering in his muscles. His face was broad, covered by a thin, straggling beard of grizzled gray, and several ridged scars were visible in different parts of it. His brows were beetling and lowering, and beneath them a couple of black eyes fairly snapt at times with electric fire. His mouth was broad, and though one could plainly see a whirlwind of terrific passion might be called into life within his breast, yet there was, also in his face, the index of a heart alive to good humor and frankness. I saw that, if approached skillfully, his heart could be reached. He was evidently the creature of odd whims and fancies and caprice, feeling as well satisfied without the society of his fellow-man as with it--one of those strange beings, a hero of a hundred perils, who was satisfied to lose his life in the mighty wilderness of the Far West, without a single one suspecting or caring for his fate. “Would you have any objections to my friend and myself accompanying you, that is, as far as you should proceed in our direction?” He looked steadily at me a moment, and answered, “You kin go with me ef you wants; but I knows as how you’re green, and yer needn’t s’pose I’m goin’ to hold in fur yer. Yers as never does that thing.”