s of the Holy
Book with which he was so familiar.

To the native Mexicans he was a holy terror and an unsolvable riddle.
They thought him possessed of an evil spirit. He at one time took up
his residence among them and commenced to trade. Shortly after he had
established himself and gathered in a stock of goods, he became involved
in a dispute with some of his customers in relation to his prices. Upon
this he apparently took an intense dislike to the people whom he had
begun to traffic with, and in his disgust tossed his whole mass of
goods into the street, and, taking up his rifle, left at once for the
mountains.

Among the many wild ideas he had imbibed from his long association with
the Indians, was faith in their belief in the transmigration of souls.
He used so to worry his brain for hours cogitating upon this intricate
problem concerning a future state, that he actually pretended to know
exactly the animal whose place he was destined to fill in the world
after he had shaken off this mortal human coil.

Uncle Dick Wooton told how once, when he, Old Bill Williams, and many
other trappers, were lying around the camp-fire one night, the strange
fellow, in a preaching style of delivery, related to them all how he was
to be changed into a buck elk and intended to make his pasture in the
very region where they then were. He described certain peculiarities
which would distinguish him from the common run of elk, and was very
careful to caution all those present never to shoot such an animal,
should they ever run across him.

Williams was regarded as a warm-hearted, brave, and generous man. He was
at last killed by the Indians, while trading with them, but has left his
name to many mountain peaks, rivers, and passes discovered by him.

Tom Tobin, one of the last of the famous trappers, hunters, and Indian
fighters to cross the dark river, flourished in the early days, when the
Rocky Mountains were a veritable terra incognita to nearly all excepting
the hardy employees of the several fur companies and the limited number
of United States troops stationed in their remote wilds.

Tom was an Irishman, quick-tempered, and a dead shot with either rifle,
revolver, or the formidable bowie-knife. He would fight at the drop of
the hat, but no man ever went away from his cabin hungry, if he had a
crust to divide; or penniless, if there was anything remaining in his
purse.

He, like Carson, was rather under the average stature,