By that season, summer's verdure had given way to dry, drab desolation, an appearance heightened by the frequently leaden autumn skies. Probably influenced partly by defensive considerations, the Nez Perces selected a site on the grassy bottom generally bordered on the north, south, and east by an intersected network of gentle and brush-filled swales, coulees, and wavelike ridges that might afford limited protection in the case of an assault by a determined foe. Chiefly, however, the site offered comfortable refuge from the seemingly ceaseless cold winds and breezes that swept the open prairie, while simultaneously providing a water source, shrub fuel and buffalo chips for cooking, and a place for concealment. At the south, in particular, a high, abruptly sloping bluff with an adjoining cut bank rose forty feet from the bottom near the creek to meet the surrounding treeless plain, undulating southeastwardly in ascending to the mountains six miles away. Near the west base of this bluff, the channel of Snake Creek angled sharply northwest for several hundred yards before turning south toward the mountains. West of the village, the bottom stretched back from the mostly dry and willow-fringed channel, gently rising through the adjacent hills to an open plateau ideal for grazing ponies. Along the right (east) side of the creek on a slightly intermediate and roughly crescent-shaped flat "covering about six acres of ground," remembered one officer, the Nee-Me-Poo set up their camps, each band or interband group occupying a specific site within a linear space measuring approximately one-quarter mile south to north and two hundred yards east to west. Full-fledged lodges of hide or canvas were scarce among the people as most had been abandoned at the Clearwater and the Big Hole and they had had little time to cut new poles. Presumably, many found shelter under pieces of canvas brought along, purchased, or captured on the way from Idaho. Southernmost lay the camp of Joseph's Wallowas, along with Husis Kute's Palouses, roughly two hundred yards from the high south bluff and containing at least fourteen families. To the northeast and across a swale stood the shelters of Looking Glass's Alpowais, at least nine in number, while adjoining these on the north were eleven more dwellings, principally Lamtamas under White Bird. Finally, fifty yards farther northwest stood the Pikunan camp of Toohoolhoolzote, which included as many as fifteen family dwellings and wickiups. This band unit occupied a generally triangular-shaped tract, each side about eighty yards long, which rose between the forks of a rivulet entering Snake Creek from a coulee directly east. [58] Just above the southern extremity of the camp, the course of Snake Creek angled southwest, and a tributary entered through a coulee from the east and southeast.

Early on the morning of September 30, even before the Nee-Me-Poo started their daily routine preparatory to continuing their trek north into Canada, the troops under Miles were in motion. Already Miles's scouts had dispersed. Lieutenant Maus, Kelly, and the several civilian guides had camped in the foothills, apparently off to the southwest, while the main body of Cheyenne and Lakota scouts searched northwest for the village. [59] Scout Louis Shambo, riding with ten of them, notified the colonel when he reached the trail discovered the previous day. Three or four miles farther, Shambo's party saw a dozen or so people in the distance running buffalo. "I soon noticed that they were Nez Perces as they had striped blankets and the other tribes had solid colors," he recalled. "I sent another Indian back to say that we had found the Nez Perces and that the command had better hurry up." Shambo and the Cheyenne scouts then followed the Indians at a safe distance as they returned to their village. From afar, because the camp was situated in the depression, they saw only the pony herd on the tract north of the stream. [60] Shambo's description of this event correlates well with that given by the Cheyenne, Young Two Moon. He claimed that two of his fellows, Starving Elk and Hump, using field glasses had spotted smoke rising far off in front and rode ahead to reconnoiter. An officer kept the two in sight; if they found the camp they were to signal back to him by separating, then riding back and crossing each other's path. When this occurred, news of the discovery was sent back to Miles. Meanwhile, the other scouts advanced to meet Starving Elk and Hump, wishing to view the Nez Perce village. Young Two Moon peered over a hill and could see the pony herd, but that was all. The scouts then started back to join Miles's command. [61]

The troops were up and about at 2:00 a.m., the cooks preparing breakfast over frozen and hard-to-light buffalo chips. "The moon and stars shine in a clear sky, the air is chilly," wrote Tilton. "We march as early as we can see to move." [62] At about 4:40 a.m., the column slowly wended southwestwardly from the bivouac site toward and into the foothills, looking to intersect the trail reported by Maus the previous day. Morning evolved bright and cloudless, the mist hanging on the mountains slowly evaporating in the sun. The order of march placed the troops of the Fifth Infantry mounted battalion in front, followed by the battalions of the Second and Seventh regiments, respectively, by the foot soldiers of the Fifth Infantry, and lastly by the pack train. [63] En route, the troops forded several iced-over tributaries and headed ever more directly south with word that some Indians had been sighted in that direction. At 5:30 a.m., Lieutenant Long, at Miles's behest, rode ahead to verify the existence of the trail found by the scouts and pronounced by them to be two days old. At 6:30, the column halted briefly to rest their horses on what Long reported was Peoples Creek, but perhaps more logically was Suction Creek, described as "10 feet in width, with clear running water and gravelly bed." Proceeding on, the troops encountered the trail of the Nez Perces leading from the mountains. Godfrey stated that this occurred at 8:20 a.m. [64] Almost simultaneously, the Cheyenne, Brave Wolf, appeared with the news that smoke from the village had been sighted about six miles ahead. At this, Miles prepared his mounted force for battle. He sent an officer rearward to hurry the lagging ammunition packs, then placed all extra dunnage with the remaining mules, the Fifth Infantry foot soldiers to follow in reserve with the train. Most of the men wore caped greatcoats. Each cavalryman carried a pistol and Springfield carbine, each mounted infantryman a "long Tom" Springfield rifle; each man took one hundred rounds of ammunition. Miles's own appearance was described in considerable detail by two civilian guides:

He looked the leader that he was—rough, tough and ready. Weighing nearly two hundred pounds, he sat on his charger like a centaur, his brown mustache and side whiskers, slightly mixed with gray, adorned features that are heavy but pleasing, and were overshadowed by a broad-brimmed, slouched drab hat. A wide blue ribbon encircled its crown, with blue streamers behind. He wore a red blanket frontier shirt and a black necktie, its ends floating over his shoulders; outside the shirt, a buckskin coat, short at the hips and carelessly buttoned; the light blue trousers of a private soldier, with black stripes down the seams, and coarse boots completed his attire. [65]

As the preparations continued, a messenger started back over the trail to find the wagon train with orders that the Napoleon gun and its ammunition be brought up quickly. In suddenly reversing direction to the north, Miles's column reformed with the Seventh Cavalry battalion in front, followed by the Second Cavalry and the mounted Fifth Infantry soldiers. At approximately this time, off to the left on a slope of the Bear's Paws, a few Nez Perce scouts suddenly appeared. Some of Miles's Cheyennes went after them, and a bit of long-range intertribal maneuvering occurred that the officers and men watched with interest from the distance. [66] Perhaps it was at this juncture that several officers of the Seventh Cavalry, anticipating the coming action, conversed among themselves, as recalled by Captain Godfrey:

Capts Hale, Moylan and self were together, when after a silence [Hale] said with a rather cynical smile: "My God! Have I got to be killed this beautiful morning?" Then his smile pursed, his countenance became serious and his eyes to the ground. Not a word was spoken for several minutes; then the Adjutant, Lt. Baird, rode up with orders to mount. [67]

As the troops started northwest, they passed "through a gap near the northern end of the range" (perhaps the area south of McCann or Miles buttes, which would have brought them to Peoples Creek about seven and one-half miles southeast of the village) and ascended a rise between Peoples and Snake creeks (west of the presently designated Sand Rocks?) from which Miles could see the Nez Perces' herd on the bench west of the village, but not the village itself. [68] At one point in the advance, the mounted troops encountered a ravine so deep and potentially hazardous that they were compelled to cross it in single file. The Seventh completed the crossing and formed on the adjoining plain, but the other units experienced difficulty.

Even before the companies of the Second and Fifth cleared the ravine and separated from the pack animals, the battalion of the Seventh Cavalry had crested a rise ahead and moved beyond view. By now, Shambo and the remaining scouts had returned with definite knowledge of location of the camp, the Cheyennes and Lakotas announcing that the fight had already started, referencing either their sighting of the camp or their encounter with Nez Perce scouts on the mountain slopes. They underwent "an almost instant transformation . . . [with] hats, coats, leggins, shirts, blankets, saddles and bridles . . . quickly thrown into one great heap in a ravine," said Miles, as they stripped themselves for the coming battle, applying paint to their bodies, donning breechclouts, moccasins, feather headdresses, and other adornments, and mounting special war ponies brought along for the occasion. [69] Thus readied according to their custom, the scouts dashed off to take the lead on either side of the troops in front. [70]

Armed with knowledge of a village of imprecise size somewhere ahead on the trail, and at least aware of the likelihood that the Nez Perces had been alerted to his presence and probably were beginning to get away, Miles planned to execute the traditional army tactical strike that became classic throughout the post-Civil War Indian campaigns—one that would physically shock and demoralize all the camp occupants—men, women, and children, both young and old—before they could respond effectively to counter the blow. Considered conscientiously immoral by modern standards, especially in its targeting of noncombatant populations, the tactic—while never formalized in the military precepts of the day—theoretically took root in the "total war" concept engendered by Union commanders during the Civil War, although it had been used previous to that struggle against Indian villages. Time-tested on numerous fields of the northern and southern plains during the postwar period, the reality-based tactic, most effectively implemented at daybreak, was embraced by field commanders hard-pressed for results against the highly mobile and particularly elusive tribesmen of the plains. Miles had used the tactic the preceding May in assaulting the village of the Minneconjou Lakota, Lame Deer, and it had resulted in the capture of the Indians' pony herd, the destruction of their camp, the killing and scattering of the people, and the psychological and emotional devastation and ultimate surrender of most of the refugees. A major difference, however, lay in the fact that the attack on Lame Deer had occurred at dawn, when most of the village occupants were asleep, while the Nez Perces who camped along Snake Creek were not only fully awake and into their daily activities, but—based on rapidly unfolding events regarding their scouts—they would anticipate, and gear up defensively to meet, such an attack. [71]

Soon after daybreak, the Nez Perces prepared to start north again, still confident that the great distance from Howard's army assured their security. In the village were approximately 700 people, of whom perhaps 250 were warriors, the rest women, children, and the elderly. [72] Some of the men rode off to hunt, while some women left the camp to skin, butcher, and pack the meat from buffaloes killed the preceding day. Other tribesmen, including Joseph and his twelve-year-old daughter, Kapkap Ponmi (Noise of Running Water), were out catching horses from among the herd located west of Snake Creek, while still others packed selected animals for continuing the movement into Canada, now but forty miles distant. Children played with sticks and mud balls. Some people were still eating breakfast when two scouts who had been visiting an Assiniboine camp raced in from the north, yelling that soldiers must be approaching and that the troops had stampeded some buffalo the two had seen during their return to the camp. [73] According to Yellow Wolf, Looking Glass downplayed the warning, saying that the people had plenty of time to move. (Looking Glass also discounted a dream the warrior, Wottolen, had had about an imminent attack.) "About one hour later," Yellow Wolf recounted, "a scout was seen coming from the same direction. He was running his horse to its best. On the highest bluff he circled about, and waved the blanket signal: 'Enemies right on us! Soon the attack!'" [74] At this immediate alarm, the warriors sprang to action, arming themselves, with some racing out to secure the horses. Women and children, some leading previously packed animals, started north out of the village. More warriors tore through the camp, running along the flat and through gullies toward the high cutbank and bluff overlooking the creek bottom on the southern perimeter, the direction of the greatest threat. "Soon, from the south came a noise," recalled Yellow Wolf, "a rumble like stampeding buffaloes." [75]