According to my historical sources (tourist art shops in Sedona) Indians always had the horse.
They used them to gaze wistfully across the plains.
Lots of gazing.
There’s a great sadness/irony: the Plains Indians had the horse for two, maybe three long lifetimes before we showed up. And old geezer in the 1860s could remember tales told by his grandfather of times when they had to hunt on foot.