Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/623

Rh George asked if I was going into the scouting field again. I told him that I had just accepted a position as chief of scouts with Gen. Wheaton. I then asked him what he was doing for a livelihood. He said that he had joined the Oregon Volunteers, and asked me if I did not think I could get him relieved. "For," said he, "I would rather work with you than any one else. We have been together so much we understand each other."

He told me his Captain's name and that he belonged to Col. Miller's regiment. I did not lose any time in seeing Col. Miller and telling him that I would like very much to have him relieve George Jones from his command, as I must have him for my first assistant.

This was the first time that Col. Miller had heard of George Jones being a scout, and he wrote out the release at once and went out and had Gen. Ross sign it and gave it to me.

George and I went to work at once to organize our scouting company, drawing our men mostly from the volunteers. About the time that we were thoroughly organized it was reported that the Pah-Utes and the Klamaths were all coming to join Captain Jack. This lava bed where Captain Jack was fortified, was sixty miles from the Klamath reservation, but the Pah-Utes were one hundred and fifty miles away, and it both surprised and amused me when those old officers would tell me that they expected the Pah-Utes any time. Being afraid of an attack from the rear, we had to scout a strip of country about forty miles long every day, and all the arguments that I could produce were of no avail. After going through this routine for about a month Gen. Wheaton