SERGEANT WILLIAM PATTERSON. 



A "BAD MAN," A LOAD OF FISH AND A DEAD CHILD. 



THERE is some reason for believing that his name 

 was William, although I do not know it. The 

 reason is entirely from analogy; he was always 

 known as "Bill" Patterson, and I had known other men 

 to be called "Bill" whose real name was William. Fur- 

 ther than this I find upon the rolls of Company H, 

 Twenty-fifth Wisconsin Infantry, the name of Sergeant 

 William Patterson, of Potosi; and my old friend, Judge 

 Seaton, who has kindly posted me on affairs in the village 

 since I left it, says: "Bill Patterson went out with the 

 Twenty-fifth Wisconsin Infantry." Therefore, as I have 

 said, there is reason for believing his name to be William. 

 If living, he is near Portland, Ore., but letters to him 

 have been returned to me after being opened by another 

 William Patterson. 



On that New Year Eve, when our surveying party re- 

 turned to Potosi from northern Minnesota, there was 

 quite a little visiting done by neighbors, who were anx- 

 ious to learn of adventures among the Indians, and as I 

 lived in the middle one of three cottages, all under one 

 roof, owned by a Mr. Knight, who lived on one side, and 

 Bill Patterson on the other, both neighbors called. Bill 

 was then, I think, about thirty-three years old, I was 

 twenty-three, and "Old Poppy Knight," the only name 

 that memory recalls him by, was probably sixty; but lit- 

 tle, weazened and dried up, and "meaner 'an pusley," as 



303 



