So it was with the Bannocks. Their medicine men taught that the white man was to be destroyed, that his horses, his cattle and his houses and land were to revert to the original owners of the country. Accordingly few houses were burned throughout the raid of several hundred miles. Even the fences around the fields were not destroyed, but were left to serve their purposes when the hated white man should be no more. The few exceptions were where white men were caught in their homes and it was necessary to burn the buildings in order to kill the owners. The home of old man Smith in Happy Valley, on the north side of Stein Mountain, the French ranch in Harney and the Cummins ranch on the John Day were exceptions. In the fights at these places some of the Indians were killed and the houses were burned out of revenge. With characteristic Indian wantonness and wastefulness hundreds of cattle were shot down, only the tongue being taken out for food. They, however, would come back as buffalo and cover the land with plenty. But horses were everywhere taken, and when that armed, mounted and tufted host debouched into Harney Valley they had a mighty herd of from seven to ten thousand horses. The Bannocks, under their noted chief, Buffalo Horn, left their reservation in Idaho and at once began the work of murder and plunder. Buffalo Horn had served under Howard during a portion of the Nez Perce war, but left him because of his dilatory tactics and his refusal to attack when he had the enemy at his mercy. He told Col. Reddington, who was following Howard as correspondent of the Oregonian and New York Herald, that Howard did not know how to fight, that next summer he would fight and show him how to make war.