White Bird refused to surrender.

He escaped the Bear Paw area rather than submit to army authority.

The people who eventually reached Canada numbered in the hundreds — approximately 300, based on Walsh’s count in October 1877.

They arrived not as a single organized group but in separate parties, over a period of days and weeks.

When Walsh met with the refugees in late October, he met with White Bird as their representative, and White Bird recounted the story of what the nimíipuu had endured.

The escape was real.