Robert's brother, and lifted her from the saddle as if to kidnap the girl; but were suddenly brought to time by a blow from the butt end of the father's oxwhip. This chastisement of the saucy young braves nearly precipitated a general quarrel, but it was finally settled.
The Barlow road had recently been opened and it was by this that these immigrants came into the Willamette Valley, and they soon found unoccupied land of excellent quality and sufficient for donation claims for both Robert and Samuel. This was at the head of Wapato Lake, and at the foot of Chehalem Mountain, then one of the best range countries in the world.
Robert Kinney was from Muscatine, in Iowa, and had been engaged in business, and besides being a foremost man in enterprise, was one of the most considerate of fathers. One of his first cares was to find educational advantages for his large family of girls and boys. In 1848 there were no public schools yet established in Oregon, and the country was much agitated over the Cayuse war, just closed, and the gold mines just discovered in California. Nevertheless Oregon had a number of mission schools. The Catholic school at St. Paul, and the Methodist mission school at Salem, and a school well attended on Clatsop Plains, were of the number; but Mr. Kinney was glad to learn that there was another still nearer home, at what was then called West Tualatin, but thirteen miles from Chehalem Mountain. Finding that this bore an excellent reputation, and that charges were extremely moderate, he decided to take his daughter to Mother Brown's boarding school. Of such an institution Jane, although but a girl of eleven, had rather an exalted opinion and was prepared for something quite remarkable.
It was some time in May or June of 1848 that her father brought her down from the farm, and she was
