We camped near their village that night. After supper Carson and I went
over to this village, at the same time taking a lot of butcher knives
and cheap jewelry with us that he had brought along to trade with the
Indians. When we got into their camp, Carson inquired where the chief's
wigwam, was. The Indians could all speak Spanish; therefore we had no
trouble in finding the chief. When we went into the chief's wigwam,
after shaking hands with the old chief and his squaw, Carson pulled some
of the jewelry out of his pocket and told the chief that he wanted to
trade for furs. The old chief stepped to the entrance of the wigwam
and made a peculiar noise between a whistle and a hollo, and in a few
minutes there were hundreds of Indians there, both bucks and squaws.

The old chief made a little talk to them that I did not understand; he
then turned to Carson and said, "Indian heap like white man."

Carson then spoke out loud so they could all hear him, at the same time
holding up some jewelry in one hand and a butcher knife in the other,
telling them that he wanted to trade these things for their furs.

The Indians answered, it seemed to me by the hundreds, saying, "Iyah
oyah iyah," which means "All right." Carson then told them to bring
their furs over to his camp the next morning, and he would then trade
with them. He was speaking in Spanish all this time. On our way back to
our camp Carson said to me, "Now Willie, if I trade for those furs in
the morning I want you and the other two boys to take the furs and go
back to Taos; I know that you will have a long and lonesome trip, but I
will try and get three or four of these Indians to go with you back to
the head of the Blue, and be very careful, and when you make a camp
always put out all of your fire as soon as you get your meal cooked.
Then the Indians can not see your camp."