One night he was out hunting when he saw a flock of geese. His friend Charles Osborne was with him. Bill started firing at these geese when all of a sudden an old Indian woman came and started haranguing him and waving her arms. It seems that she had hatched these geese herself. They left quickly, but he was forever hung with a new nickname.
In the early 1870s, Bill decided to move closer to the mines. He set up a trading post on the Colville Indian Reservation. It was an ideal location because he could trade with the Indians as well as outfit those heading to the Coeur d’Alenes to prospect. His claim was near the present town of Wilbur. He married a Coeur d’Alene Indian woman during this time. Marrying whites was not a thing these Indians accepted and some of her fellows were sent to bring her back. They weren’t successful in taking the woman back to her people, nor did they ever return themselves.
He sold his pack train and bought cattle. He built a two story log house and store. Shortly afterward, he married an Indian woman and they eventually had three sons. It wasn't long before Bill was able to expand his herds. He was in a good location for he was on the crossroads of many Indian trails. He often heard the news about what was going on long before it happened. For instance he heard about possible mining areas in the Salmon Creek and Palmer Lake area. He figured Spokane Falls would end up being supply post for those areas. He took advantage of it by building a ferry across the Columbia River. He used a fleet of canoes to take men and goods across. He removed the wheels from the wagons, tied them together, and floated them across. The animals got to swim on their own.
In 1886, miners began flooding into the area when the Okanogan country to the north started experiencing a gold rush. The boom towns of Ruby and Salmon City (later Conconully) sprang
