On the night of October 4 to 5 — the night before Joseph’s surrender and White Bird’s departure — some number of nimíipuu began moving north.

White Bird was among them, or he left that night or the following night, under cover of darkness.

The mechanics of how people got out of a besieged camp are not described in detail in the historical record.

The camp’s position in the Snake Creek ravines was not perfectly encircled by Miles’s forces — the army’s lines were not tight enough to prevent movement through the broken terrain at night.

The nimíipuu were, above all, experienced movers across difficult country.