m
"Che Conservative.
of the parity of moneys. Has anyone
ever hoard a greater absurdity ?
It seems to me that \ve can safely re
legate the money issue to the rear and
turn to the momentous questions that
have sprung up since Mr. McKinley
took office , and wherein all democrats
are united in opposition to his policy.
JACOB SOHOENHOP.
Now York , Sept , 15 , 1900.
\
OLD HILL WILLIAMS.
Travelers who have wished to visit the
Petrified Forest and the Grand Oanon
of the Colorado in Arizona , have hith
erto been obliged to' take an all-day's
ride or drive overland from the station
called Flagstaff on the Santa Fe road.
Now however , a rail connection has
been provided , a branch line running up
from the little town of Williams.
This is a place where some Michigan
people have not set up a sawmill , and it
has its name from Bill Williams moun
tain , under which it lies. The moun
tain in turn perpetuates the memory of
a singular individual , whose name is
likewise borne by a river a little further
west , and no doubt by other landmarks
in the vicinity as well. Old Bill Wil
liams was a hunter and trapper of the
earliest days , one to be named alongside
of Kic Oarson , Maxwell , Peg-leg Smith
and the other traditionary heroes of the
fir southwest. Ho was one of the first
of that race , and was always called "old
Bill" as far as record or memory goes
back. He was apparently somewhat
demouted , and many queer stories are
told of him. He had been , by his own
account , a Methodist circuit-rider back
in the settlements , but he lived for a
great many years among the Indians.
He would make a long stay with one
tribe , becoming fully acquainted with
its language and customs , until the
spirit moved him to depart to another.
The familiarity with various dialects
which he thus acquired is said to have
made him very useful to missionaries ,
whom he would aid in translating their
sacred writings into the aboriginal
tongues. This seems to have been the
last flicker of divinity within him , how
ever , for his life in the mountains was a
succession of the wildest and most
erratic adventures. In this wild life ho
also gained such a knowledge of the ins
and outs of the Kooky mountains that
he has the credit of having been sur
passed in this kind of lore by only one
man Major Jim Bridger.
One story that is told of him is that he
once established himself as a storekeeper
in a Mexican town , meaning to get rich
by trade. But at the first controversy
with a customer over prices ho lost both
his temper and his relish for a com
mercial life , fired his entire stock of
goods into enternal smash in the middle
of the street , while the appalled greasers
looked on from a safe distance ; then he
seized his Hawkins rifle and put off on
foot for the mountains , where he could
have thing ? to suit him.
The Mexicans are said to have consid
ered him a demoniac , or one possessed
by an evil spirit ; perhaps his eccentrici
ties also contributed to his security
among the wild Indians , who looked
with awe on any manifestation of the
unusual in nature , and whom Old Bill
no doubt impressed as very big medi
cine.
Williams was one of those pioneers
whose stories are strung along with that
of that brilliant adventurer , John O.
Fremont. His contact with him was
unfortunate , perhaps for both , certainly
for the old man , whose memory is con
signed to lasting obloquy by the record
Fremont has left of their relations. It
was on the latter's fourth exploring
expedition , in the winter of 1848 0 , that ,
having planned to cross the mountains
by a southerly route and in the dead of
winter , in order , as he said , to judge of
the obstacles to railroad operation that
the seasons would present in that
quarter. He engaged the services of
Old Bill Williams as guide.
The expedition met , as the explorer
stated in a letter to his wife , with
"events which have been so singularly
disastrous as absolutely to astonish me
with a persistence of misfortune , which
no precaution has been adequate on my
part to avert. " This he seems to have
laid mainly to the charge of Old Bill
Williams. "The error of our journey
was committed in engaging this man.
He proved never to have known in the
least , or entirely to have forgotten , the
whole region of country through which
we were to pass. " In support of this
sweeping assertion concerning a famous
specialist in that line , who had given
twenty-five years to the study of the
country , one might look for the writer to
give some instances , but none is ad
duced. The party was in a blizzard on
the crest of the divide , lost all its animals
and many men , and was reduced ( on the
authority of Senator Benton ) to canni
balism ; not all , but a few of them. But
instead of the venerable guide having
been as totally at sea as the passage
quoted would imply , we have the state
ment that the route followed was
selected by reason of "his positive asser-
tion-that the pass was there. " It would
seem quite possible , therefore , that the
guide was right , and that it was the
weather that upset the explorer's plans.
There is also a further complication to
this matter , in a statement made by the
late Oolouol Inman , a man who was
very wise in the verbal traditions of that
part of the country. "Tho old moun
taineers contend" , he says , ' -that if Fre
mont had profited by the old man's ad
vice , he would never have run into that
death-trap. Williams explained to him
that it was perfectly impracticable to get
over at that season. The general , how
ever , ignoring the statement , listened to
another of his party , a man who had no
such experience. "
There seems at any rate to bo two
sides to this story , though no doubt
Fremont's will be the only one known
to such of posterity as shall ever hear of
Old Bill Williams at all.
How long he lived after this unfor
tunate affair is not known to the writer ,
but at last he was killed by Indians , and
was then , if he carried out his aute-
mortem plans , transformed into a buck
elk. For he held to the doctrine of the
trans-migration of souls , and know just
what kind of an elk he was going to be ,
and used , to describe his future charac
teristics to his friends , that they might
not shoot him on meeting him , after his
death , among the mountains.
So much for the town of Williams ,
Arizona.
A. T. R.
HUFFALO.
One benefit that may ba looked for , if
such a collection of original documents as
the Ohouteau family's files containcomes
into accessibility , will be that something
like a posthumous census of the buffalo
can be made. Although it would not
be surprising if Oolonel Ohittendon's
forthcoming "History of the Fur
Trade , " which is anxiously awaited by
many , were found to contain statistics
on this subject , which will inspire a
gratifying degree of confidence , coming
from so painstaking an investigator.
Those who have come on the scene
since the disappearance of the buffalo ,
find it hard to understand how those
animals could have existed on the plains
in such numbers as is represented , or
how they could have been exterminated
to the last one in so short a time. Passages
like the following , which occur con
stantly in all the earlier books of travel ,
represent a state of things which it is
difficult for one at this day to depict to
himself :
"They once ranged from the Alle-
ghanies to the Rocky mountains , from
the frozen lakes to the Tierras Oalientes
of Mexico. " "As
numerous , appar
ently , as the sands of the seashore. "
"The prairie was black from horizon to
horizon with the shaggy monsters. "
"Rode for three consecutive days ( in
1808) ) through one continuous herd ,
which must have contained millions. "
"The train ( in 18G9) ) was delayed from
nine until five by the passage of a herd
across the track. Our vision was only
limited by the horizon , and the whole
vast area was black with the affrighted
buffaloes as they rushed onward to the
south. " "I am confident we looked
upon 40,000 of them from one point. "
"The face of the earth appeared to be
covered with them. " " 1850 square
miles of country so thickly covered with
these noble animals that when viewed
from a height it scarcely afforded a
sight of a square league of its surface. ' '