Bill Williams was the most successful trapper in the mountains, and the best acquainted with the ways and habits of the wild tribes among and near whom he spent his adventurous life. He first came to the West as a sort of missionary to the Osages. But "Old Bill" laid aside his Christianity and took up his rifle and came to the mountains He was full of oddities in appearance, manner, conversation, and actions. He generally went out alone into the mountains, and would remain there trapping by himself for several months together, his lonely camps being often pitched in the vicinity of hostile savages. But he was as well versed in stratagem as they, and though he bore the marks of balls and arrows, he was a terror to them in single fight. He was a dead shot with a rifle, though he always shot with a "double wabble"; he never could hold his gun still, yet his ball went always to the spot on a single shot. Though a most indefatigable walker, he never could walk on a straight line, but went staggering along, first on one side and then the other. He was an expert horseman; scarce a horse or mule could unseat him. He rode leaning forward upon the pommel, with his rifle before him, his stirrups ridiculously short, and his breeches rubbed up to his knees, leaving his legs bare even in freezing cold weather. He wore a loose monkey-jacket or a buckskin hunting-shirt, and for his head-covering a blanket-cap, the two top corners drawn up into two wolfish, satyr-like ears, giving him somewhat the appearance of the representations we generally meet with of his Satanic Majesty, at the same time rendering his _tout ensemble_ exceedingly ludicrous. He was a perfect specimen of his kind, an embodiment of the reckless and extravagant propensity of the mountaineers, and he pursued his lucrative but perilous vocation from an innate love of its excitement and dangers. For twenty-one years he had lived in the mountains without returning to civilized life until he was taken back under guard, a year or two previous, by Captain Cook, for the offense of manoeuvering and acting the Indian in his buckskin suit on the plains, thereby deceiving the captain into the belief that he was an Indian, and giving his men a fruitless chase of several miles over the prairies before they could overtake him on his pony, much to his diversion and the officer's chagrin. Such was old Bill Williams--he who was destined to be our guide at this time. But it was not without some hesitation that he consented to go, for most of the old trappers at the pueblo declared that it was impossible to cross the mountains at that time; that the cold upon the mountains was unprecedented, and the snow deeper than they had ever known it so early in the year. However, Old Bill concluded to go, for he thought we could manage to get through, though not without considerable suffering.