And they knew, or believed, that what awaited them on the American side of Bear Paw — if they surrendered — was not a return to Idaho but something they could not fully know or trust.

The Final Meaning: More Than One Ending

The 1877 flight is sometimes called, in popular histories, the most brilliant strategic retreat in American military history.

Military historians have analyzed the tactical decisions of the nimíipuu leaders and found in them an extraordinary example of movement under pursuit, of small-scale tactical success against a technologically superior opponent, of leadership under impossible conditions.

This framing — brilliant military retreat — is accurate as far as it goes.