Bill Biddon, Trapper: or, Life in the Northwest

“He’s there!” he exclaimed.

“Where?” I asked, catching his excitement.

“Just across the stream up there; I liked to have run right into him afore I knowed it. See there!”

As Nat spoke, I saw the glimmering of a fire through the trees, and heard the whinny of a horse.

“Didn’t he see you?”

“Yes, I know he did. When I splashed into the water like a fool, he looked up at me and grunted; I seen him pick up his rifle, and then I put, expecting each moment to feel a ball in me.”

“I thought you intended laying hands on him if an opportunity offered,” I remarked, with a laugh.

“I declare, I forgot that,” he replied, somewhat crestfallen.

After some further conversation, I decided to make the acquaintance of the person who had occupied so much of our thoughts. Nat opposed this, and urged me to get farther from him; but a meaning hint changed his views at once, and he readily acquiesced. He would not be prevailed upon, however, to accompany me, but promised to come to my aid if I should need help during the interview. So leaving him, I started boldly up the stream.

When I reached the point opposite the stranger’s camp-fire, I stumbled and coughed so as to attract his attention. I saw him raise his eyes and hurriedly scan me, but he gave no further evidence of anxiety, and I unhesitatingly sprang across the stream, and made my way toward him. Before I halted, I saw that he was a trapper. He was reclining upon the ground, before a small fire, and smoking a short black pipe, in a sort of dreamy reverie.

“Good evening, my friend,” I said, cheerfully, approaching within a few feet of him. He raised his eyes a moment, and then suffered them lazily to fall again, and continue their vacant stare into the fire. “Quite a pleasant evening,” I continued, seating myself near him.

“Umph!” he grunted, removing his pipe, and rising to the upright position. He looked at me a second with a pair of eyes of sharp, glittering blackness, and then asked: “Chaw, stranger?”

“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?”

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“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.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t expect you to. Of course, we will make it a point not to interfere in the least with your plans and movements.”

“Whar is yer other chap? S’pose it war him what come peakin’ through yer a while ago; had a notion of spilin’ his picter fur his imperdence.”

“I will go bring him,” I answered, rising and moving off. But as I stepped across the stream, I discerned the top of Nat’s white hat, just above a small box-elder; and moving on, saw his eye fixed with an eager stare upon the trapper.

“Don’t he look savage?” he whispered, as I came to him.

“Not very. Are you afraid of him?”

“No; but I wonder whether he – whether he knows anything about the old mare and my knife.”

“Perhaps so; come and see. He just now asked for you.”

“Asked for me?” repeated Nat, stepping back. “What does he want of me?”

“Nothing in particular. I just mentioned your name, and he asked where you were. Come along; I hope you ain’t afraid?”

“Afraid! I should like to see the man I’m afraid of!” exclaimed my companion in an almost inaudible whisper, as he tremblingly followed me across the brook, and to the spot where Biddon, the trapper, was lying.

“My friend, Nathan Todd, Biddon.”

“How are you? Very happy to make your acquaintance,” and Nat nervously extended his hand.

“How’re yer?” grunted Biddon, with a slight jerk of his head, and not noticing the proffered hand.

“Been a most exceedingly beautiful day,” ventured Nat, quickly and nervously.

I saw the trapper was not particularly impressed with him, and I took up the conversation. I made several unimportant inquiries, and learned in the course of them, that our friend, Bill Biddon, was about forty years of age, and had followed trapping and hunting for over twenty years. He was a native of Missouri, and Westport was the depot for his peltries. For the last two or three years he had made all his excursions alone. He was quite a famous trapper, and the fur company which he patronized gave him a fine outfit and paid him well for his skins. He possessed a magnificently-mounted rifle, and his horse, he informed me, had few superiors among the fleetest mustangs of the south. Both of these were presented him by the company mentioned.