Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/240

 232' T. W. DAVENPORT. would hold the oxen as government property until they were proved away from me. Soon after getting my answer they appeared at the agency, to formally present their claim. And in answer to my resolution to hold the cattle, they replied that they were poor men and unable to stand a suit to defend their claim, and they were not disposed to take the cattle from the range while I laid claim to them, as that would be a sure way of getting into law. I appreciated their condition and told them to bring satisfactory proof of their ownership and I would surrender the cattle. To this they gladly assented, and said they would prove by my employees that the oxen did not belong to the government, and also prove their affirmative claim of ownership by their disinterested white neighbors. They did both abundantly. Mr. John S. White, the superintendent of farming, was not present at the time the property came into my possession and could not say as to their identity. The interpreter was present and when asked if they were the same cattle turned over to me, answered, "Yes," but to the question, "Are they de- partment cattle?" answered "No." "Antoine, did you know at that time that they were not the property of the government?" He answered, "Yes." I then asked him why he stood by, knowing this fact, a silent accessory to the perpetration of such a fraud. His answer was no doubt premeditated. He was visibly agitated, when he responded: "Mr. Davenport, I am an Indian, and Mr. Barnhart shoots Indians." Even this abnegation of manhood did not save him from the bullet of an assassin, if circumstantial evidence is valuable in his case, for Antoine mysteriously disappeared from the agency, and Agent Barnhart conjectured that in attempting to walk the foot logs, while intoxicated, he had fallen into the Umatilla and been carried by the strong current into the Col- umbia. Several years afterwards I inquired of Antoine's sister as to his fate, and she told me that his body was found