People needed food and recovery time.

The camp they made at Snake Creek was intended as a rest stop, not a permanent position.

The fatal calculation was about Colonel Nelson Miles.

Miles had been stationed at Tongue River Cantonment in eastern Montana, on the Yellowstone River.

When word reached him about the nimíipuu flight and their direction, he marched rapidly northwest across the Montana plains with approximately 450 soldiers — a mixed force of cavalry, infantry, and artillery, including scouts from the Cheyenne nation who knew how to track across open country.

The rapid march was nearly 200 miles in cold autumn weather, accomplished quickly enough to reach the Bear Paw Mountains before the nimíipuu leadership expected any army column from that direction.