The human cost of the horse loss was immediate and severe.

At Bear Paw, Miles’s first-day attack focused partly on capturing the horse herd, which had been grazing away from the camp’s defensive perimeter.

The loss of those horses eliminated the option of immediate flight for most of the people in camp.

The five-day siege was possible partly because the nimíipuu were now too slow-moving to break out quickly with their families.

For White Bird’s escape to work, he needed to reach Canada across forty miles of open plain without most of the horses.