He was an elderly man — probably in his late sixties or early seventies — who had just participated in four months of continuous movement across some of the most difficult terrain in North America.

He had been a leader through all of it: in the councils that debated strategy, in the fighting at Big Hole, in the management of the community’s movement across Montana.

He had refused to sign the 1863 treaty.

He had tried to prevent the 1877 conflict through peaceful accommodation.

He had sent a peace party with a white flag to meet the army at White Bird Canyon and watched them get shot at anyway.

He had watched the army fire artillery at his people’s families.