I said:  “Mr. Favor, I could tell you just the number, but it would be out of place for me to do so.”  He asked why, and I said:  “Mr. Favor, up to this time I don’t think I have ever given you any reason to doubt my word, but if I should tell you the honest truth as to the number of Indians I have scalped with that knife I fear you would doubt me.”

By this time a number of his St. Louis friends had flocked around me, and it seemed as if they would look through me.  Mr. Favor assured me that he would not doubt my word for a moment, but I told him his friends would.  They assured me that they would not, saying from what they had heard of me from Mr. Favor before seeing me, they felt satisfied that I would tell them the truth.

I said:  “Gentlemen, if I had gotten one more scalp I would just have even thirty-four, but as it is I have just taken thirty-three scalps with this knife.  I mean from Indians that I killed myself.  I have taken a number that were killed by others, but I did not count them.”

The crowd then turned their attention to Uncle Kit Carson, and while at the supper table those St. Louis parties asked him what he would take to sit down and give them a true history of his life and let them write it up and have it published.  To this he would not hear.  They then came at him in a different manner by asking what per cent, of the net proceeds he would take.  To this he said:  “Gentlemen, if there is anything on earth that I do dislike it surely is this thing called notoriety,” and he continued by saying, “There is a part of my life that I hate to think of myself, and a book written without the whole of my life would not amount to anything.”

After supper we returned to the store and those men talked with Uncle Kit until near midnight about this matter.  By this time he had become impatient and said:  “Gentlemen, there is no use talking, for I will not submit to a thing of this kind, and you will oblige me very much by not mentioning it any more.”  So that ended the conversation concerning the matter, for the time being, and Uncle Kit and I retired for the night.

The morning following I walked down to the store and Mr. Favor told me there had been some parties looking for me, and left word for me to meet them at the store at ten o’clock.

I sat down and waited until they came at the hour appointed.  A gentleman in the crowd named Green Campbell seemed to be their spokesman.  And, by the way, this same Mr. Campbell has since grown to be very wealthy and now resides in Salt Lake City, and a few years ago was nominated on the Gentile ticket for Governor, but was defeated.

Mr. Campbell said to me:  “There are five of us that have been mining here this summer and have done very well, but we are not satisfied.  We want to go on to the waters of the Gila river and prospect this winter, and have been trying for several days to find some one that could guide us to that country, and Mr. Favor having recommended you to us very highly, we wish to make some kind of a bargain with you if we can, to guide us to that part of the country.  Is it safe for a small party to go in there?”