This was the reality that awaited nimíipuu refugees who tried to go home.

The border provided some protection from the army itself, but crossing back was dangerous.

Small parties were caught and some were killed.

The Medicine Line was a refuge of a specific kind: it protected from the American army, but it did not protect from poverty, exile, cold, and the disruption of everything familiar.

It was not safety in the full sense of the word.

It was a different kind of precariousness from the siege at Bear Paw.