Samuel Freeman Miller

“ The construction which the government has put upon it, namely, that it is an obligation to protect his person and property while engaged in the effort to perform the contract, and that the failure to afford such protection renders the United States responsible for the value of the property actually lost for want of it, and which would include, perhaps, personal injuries, if any had been sustained, seems to us to be the true one. ”

“ If the United States was bound by the contract to furnish full protection, and if the measure of damages was these profits, the question must be answered in the affirmative.
But, as we have already said, we are of opinion that the true measure of damages was the actual value of the property lost by the contractor; and as the government recognized and acted on this rule, we do not think McKee is entitled to recover for his supposed profits, or that the government should recover of him what it has paid him for these actual losses. ”

“ The court expressly find, that the whole transaction was in the Indian Territory, south of Kansas and west of Arkansas. We know that this is country set apart for the use of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and other Indian tribes, by treaties, those tribes having been removed there from other localities. ”