Page:The Indian History of the Modoc War.djvu/109



Eugene Hovey. Born in Yreka, Cal. ; aged 21. father and brothers to mourn his loss.

Left a mother,

The Modoc men, Hooker Jim and Bogus Char-ley, did a very bad and cowardly act when they killed young Hovey of Yreka, California. Hovey's parents lived in Yreka at the time of his death. They were both highly re- spected people. 1 knew them in them days. Young Hovey was killed about 11 a. m., April 18, 1873. He was nothing but a boy. He boarded with us. He had been working with his two horses three or four days for the Govern- ment officers. He would pack one horse and ride the other, and go to the front twice a day. I do not know what he was packing, as I never learnt. 1 think it was cartridges and other stuff.

The reason I say it was a cowardly thing to kill him, he was not fighting the Modocs. He did not carry even a pistol. He was a good boy; everybody liked him. He never had much to say; he never mixed up in anyone's affairs, he always attended to his own business. The poor, faithful boy died an un- timely death. The two bloodthirsty demons that killed him was not satis- fied with the killing of him, so they went to work and crushed his head with a big stone, also disfigured his body and cut his stomach open and let his bowels out. If the young boy had been out fighting them it would not have been so bad. But he was not fighting them. Of course, some Indians has been badly handled by white men. But that was no cause that they should kill this poor innocent boy who was harming no one.

I think there is some of his people living in Yreka, California.