He then made a statement confirming all that Long John had testified to concerning Ives.
The people commiserated his hapless condition. He was an old man, weak, somewhat imbecile. They concluded that his silence had been enforced by the threats of Ives and his associates, and that, as there was no proof implicating him directly with robbery or murder, they would sentence him to banishment from the Territory. Ten days were given him in which to leave. Glad to escape with his life, he applied to Plummer for assistance. Plummer advised him to remain; but the old man took wiser counsel from his fears. He decided to go. Plummer gave him a pony and provisions, and he left Montana forever.
Hilderman was possessed of a coarse humor, which he had lost no opportunity to demonstrate, while a sojourner at Bannack. It made him quite a favorite with the miners, until they became suspicious of his villainous propensities. He was also a notorious “bummer,” and was oftener indebted to his humor, which was always at command, than his pocket, which was generally empty, for something to eat. In width, his mouth was a deformity, and the double row of huge teeth firmly set in his strong jaws gave to his countenance an animal expression truly repulsive. He was the original of the story of “The Great American Pie-biter.” This feat of spreading his jaws so as to bite through seven of Kustar’s dried-apple pies, had been frequently performed by him, in satisfaction of the wager he was ever on hand to make of his ability to do it. On one occasion, however, he was destined to be defeated. A miner, who had been victimized by him, arranged with Kustar, the proprietor of the Bannack Bakery, to have two of the pies inserted in the pile without removing the tin plates in which they had been baked, the edges of which were concealed by the overlapping crusts. Hilderman approached the pile, and spreading his enormous mouth, soon spanned it with his teeth. The crunch which followed, arrested by the metal, was unsuccessful. He could not understand it, but, despite the vice-like pressure, the jaws would not close. The trick not being discovered, he paid the wager, declaring that Kustar made the toughest pie-crust he had ever met with.