“He remained at this lodge about two weeks, paying the Indian ten dollars a meal. His food consisted of ants and an unpalatable herb, called in the mountains the ‘tobacco plant.’
“The above facts Helm gave me with tears in his eyes, and said, ‘I will give you all I have in the world,—which is only nine dollars,—to take me to the settlements.’ I told him I did not desire money for helping a man in his condition.
“That same evening the Indian with whom Helm had been stopping, visited me. His name was Mo-quip. I had known him for several years. He fully corroborated Helm’s story, in regard to the carrying and eating the body of his companion. ‘When I first tasted of the flesh,’ said Mo-quip in his own tongue, ‘I knew not what it was, but told the stranger it was bueno[[1]] game,—better than I had myself. The stranger then took hold of one of the corners of a red shirt that was around his pack, and jerked it up, when a white man’s leg, the lower end ragged from gnawing, rolled out on the ground.’ Altogether Helm had paid Mo-quip two hundred and eighty dollars.
[1]. Good.
“Having given him a new suit of buckskin, and furnished him with a horse, he set out with my party for Salt Lake City. Just after pitching my lodge the first evening after starting with him, ‘Grand Maison,’ very much frightened, came to me with a sack of gold coin which he said Helm had asked him to conceal until they reached Salt Lake City. I took the money and counted it—it amounted to fourteen hundred dollars.
“Though satisfied there was something wrong, I said nothing, and took Helm on to the settlements. Having ascertained in the meantime that he was the worst kind of a desperado, I called him to me as soon as we had reached the end of the journey, and handed him his money, saying, ‘You can now take care of yourself.’ He coolly put the coin in his pocket, without expressing a syllable of thankfulness for the assistance I had rendered him.
“It was not long until he had squandered all he had in gambling and drinking, and was finally expelled from Salt Lake Valley for his atrocities.
“Hoping these facts may be of service to you, allow me to subscribe myself,
Your obt. servant,
“John W. Powell.”