Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/457

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
KIT CARSON'S LIFE.
345

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