After supper, they drew their chairs in front of the fire, and Uncle Joe and his brother solaced themselves with their pipes, while Bob busied himself in clearing away the table and washing the dishes.
"This Bill Lawson," said the trapper, after taking a few puffs at his pipe, to make sure that it was well lighted, "used to take it into his head onct in awhile to act as guide for fellers as wanted to go to Californy. He knowed every inch of the country from St. Joseph to the mines, for he had been over the ground more'n you ever traveled through these yere woods, an' he was called as good a guide as ever tuk charge of a wagon-train. In course, I allers went with him on these trips, as a sort o' pack-hoss an' hunter, cause ole Bill couldn't think o' goin' anywhere without me; an' I have often thought that the reason why he made them trips as guide, was jest to get a good look at the folks; it reminded him o' the time when he had parents, an' brothers an' sisters. He never laughed an' joked round the camp-fires, as he used to do when me and him war off alone in the mountains. He hardly ever said a word to any body besides me, an' allers appeared to be sorrowful. This give him the name of 'Moody Bill,' by which he was knowed all through the country. Every trader on the prairy war acquainted with him, an' he allers tuk out a big train. I never knowed him to lose but one, an' he lost himself with it. The way it happened war this:
"One night, arter we had got about a week's journey west of Fort Laramie, we stopped in a little oak opening, where we made our camp. It war right in the heart o' the wust Injun country I ever see, an' near a place where me an' ole Bill had often _cached_ our furs an' other fixins, an' which we used as a kind o' camp when we war in that part o' the country trappin' beaver an' fightin' Injuns. It war a cave in the side of a mountain, an' the way we had it fixed nobody besides ourselves couldn't find it. We never went in or come out of it until arter dark, 'cause the Comanches were a'most allers huntin' 'bout the mountains, an' we didn't want em to break up our harborin' place. We had made up our minds that, arter we had seed our train safe through, we would come back to our 'bar's hole,' as we called it, an' spend a month or so in fightin' the Comanches an' skrimmagin' with the grizzlies in the mountains.