Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/58

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

42 Fred Lockley escape and tell the other Indians and they will kill all of us/ Kinney said, 'I generally have my way. Any man that crosses me, regrets it. I have had to kill two or three men already because they interfered with me. If you want any trouble you know how to get it.' Kinney was an individualist. He would not obey the train rules but he was such a powerful man and apparently held life so lightly that no one wanted to cross him. "Kinney went to where the Indian was, jumped olf his mule, and struck the Indian over the head. The Indian tried to escape. He put up a fight but was no match for Kinney. In a moment or two Kinney had knocked him down and gotten his hand cuffs on him and dragged him to the hack, fastened a rope around his neck, and fas- tened him to the hack. Kinney told his wife to hand him his black-snake whip, which she did, as she was as much afraid of him as the men were. Then he told his wife to drive on. He slashed the Indian across the naked shoulders with the black-snake whip as a hint not to pull back. The Indian threw himself on the ground and was pulled along by his neck. Kinney kept slashing him to make him get up, till finally the Indian got up and trotted along behind the hack. "For several days Kinney rode back of the Indian, slashing him across the back with the black-snake to do what he called 'break his spirit/ After a week or ten days Kinney untied the Indian and turned him over to his ox driver, telling him to break the Indian in to drive the ox team. "Kinney had a hound dog that was wonderfully smart. He had used him in Texas to trail runaway slaves. After two or three weeks Kinney did not tie the Indian any more at night, as he said if the Indian ran away the dog would pick up his trail and he could follow him and kill him to show the other Indians the superiority of the white man. He said he had killed plenty of negroes and an Indian was no better than a negro.