The landlord's bell awoke us in the morning. On turning over I observed that the door leading into the adjoining room was open, and that two men lay on their blankets with their heads almost in the door-way. One of them, a heavy-built, muscular man, with a broad grin on his face, looked at us curiously, and said to the one nearest to him,

"How are you, Sir?"

"Very well, I suspect. Whom may I call you?" was the reply.

"I am generally, if not always, called Bill Hickman," rejoined the heavy, muscular man.

We were all not a little surprised to find ourselves in such close proximity to the most notorious murderer and assassin in all Mormondom; but none showed it much, save our young companion, Charley Samson, who, to speak the truth, was really not yet half awake, and had only received some vague impression about Bill Hickman being around. Charley sprang out of his blankets to the middle of the room, looked around in every direction, like a man on the plains who is straining his eyes to see if Indians are near, then fixed his glance on Bill Hickman and companion, who was his younger brother, a doctor. The act, attitude, and expression were so ludicrous that both parties burst out into an uncontrolled fit of laughter. This thoroughly awoke Charley, and also gave him time to recover himself, which he did by "playing out his hand" to considerable advantage. As soon as we ceased laughing he, with as much apparent earnestness as before, threw up both hands, as if in the most absolute astonishment, and exclaimed, "Est il possible! Can it be that I have slept all night with Bill Hickman and am not dead, and have not got my throat cut, nor am not stabbed in the back?" Then, after feeling of himself, as if to be fully satisfied of his entirety and soundness, he rushed to the head of his bed, took up his revolver, and examined it. That, too, was there, and all right. "But my pocket-book!" exclaimed he; "where is that?" He felt for it. It was in his pocket, and had not been disturbed. Charley then very innocently declared that Bill Hickman could not be such a bad man after all. The amusing way in which this scene was enacted kept us all in a roar of laughter. Bill Hickman laughed louder than any one else; but there was not that naturalness, that hilarity about it which characterized his first outburst of mirthfulness; perhaps some of Charley's words touched him deeper than he cared to show. It all passed off pleasantly, however, and Charley and Hickman became fast friends. Indeed, it must be confessed that Bill Hickman is a much more agreeable companion than two-thirds of the Mormon men. I regard him as the ablest man in the Mormon ranks to lead a small body of desperate or determined men on a dangerous expedition. Great kindness is sometimes expressed upon his countenance. He is a man susceptible of strong affections as well as bad passions. Porter Rockwell is an infinitely harder looking man.