Samuel Bowles, Our New West (1869)

nHad “John,”  ...--a good claim, original or improved, he was ordered to “move on,”--it belonged to somebody else. Had he hoarded a pile, he was ordered to disgorge; and, if he resisted, he was killed. Worse crimes even are known against them; they have been wantonly assaulted and shot down or stabbed by bad men, as sportsmen would surprise and shoot their game in the woods. There was no risk in such barbarity; if “John” survived to tell the tale, the law would not hear him or believe him.