Eighty-six Cheyenne families followed Little Wolf to his self-imposed exile near Rosebud Creek. To most observers, this blind loyalty to a fallen leader required little explanation. After all, Little Wolf had recently led his people in a costly yet courageous escape from Indian Territory, fighting through the dead of winter back to the Northern Cheyenne's ancestral Montana homeland, and in the process attained a cultlike status. When this small community soon prospered to the point that just four years later President Chester Arthur declared a Northern Cheyenne Reservation in the specific area surrounding Little Wolf's exile, the amazing story of the resilient and defiant Northern Cheyenne seemed complete. Little Wolf had guided his people through the harrowing escape back to Montana, and his final act of violence dictated the specific location of their federally sanctioned home.