Indeed he did!
"I don't think much of white men's tactics, Buckie. You wasted half you strength on pickets at Whisky Gap and the Rocky Mountain passes."
"Sam thought," said I, "that being an Indian, you'd stay in the district, where you had lots of help. I thought that, being a white man, you'd skin out for the states. I didn't say so."
"I thought," said Don José, "as a sort of mongrel white-Indian that before I cleared for Spain I'd better arrange the future for my scarecrows, my little Bears, my brother, Many Horses, and all my rag-tag and bobtail pensioners. But, when I tried to do business, they always blubbered until I had to run."
"Why didn't you leave the business to the Brat, or me?"
"And sacrifice you both to save my tribe, eh? Poor sport to make my brother and my chum accomplices in murder."
So he had stayed in the district with his depot camps and relays of ponies. The Indians were his intelligence department, keeping him constantly advised by signal-fires and smokes, by cypress messages on rocks or trees, or by verbal reports which told him our every movement. I remember one patrol, when I had twenty men for seventy hours in the saddle, until in sheer exhaustion we were compelled to camp at Big Bend detachment. Then came a rider flying to report that Charging Buffalo had just been seen at Kootenay. We white men rallied for the twenty-eight-mile march, but our Indians lay and were kicked, done for, refusing to move. We left them, and went off reeling.
On another occasion, a Mormon farmer brought news that, while he was cutting fence rails, Charging Buffalo had crept out from the bush, and made off with his lunch. Smoldering for revenge, the man led us through the timber to a small opening where we found and surrounded a tent. Two men covered the entrance with their revolvers, while I pulled aside the flap disclosing a couple of Mormons in a shaking funk.
Farther on, in the gray of dawn, we found another clearing, and a second tent. Here Marmot, one of my friend's pet scarecrows, who had ridden with him for many a weary day, heard our approach, looked out and screamed.
"Oh, I remember that!" said Charging Buffalo, "and Marmot had a screech like a deep-sea tug. I ripped the back of the tent with my knife, rolled through, and got to cover just in time to escape a volley. But I was half asleep still, or I'd never have missed the officer's head. Was that you, Buckie?"