Photo: The Canadian Press

The prospect of a police raid on an encampment protesting the Dakota Access pipeline faded as night fell Wednesday, with law enforcement making no immediate move after protesters rejected their request to withdraw from private land.

Unmarked aircraft that had been monitoring protesters were withdrawn late in the day, and some activists who had been on hand for a possible confrontation headed back to a larger protest camp on federal land.

Law enforcement officials said they were ready to remove about 200 protesters who this weekend set up teepees and tents on land owned by the pipeline company.

Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney told reporters that authorities don't want a confrontation but that the protesters "are not willing to bend."

"We have the resources. We could go down there at any time," he said. "We're trying not to."

Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said authorities would continue to try for a peaceful resolution but that "we are here to enforce the law as needed."

Protesters vowed to stay put, at one point chanting "Stand in peace against the beast."

"We're going to hold this ground," said protester Mekasi Camp Horinek.

"I'm here to die if I have to. I don't want to die but I will," said Didi Banerji, who lives in Toronto but is originally from the Spirit Lake Sioux reservation in North Dakota.

Activists fear the nearly 1,200-mile pipeline could harm cultural sites and drinking water for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.

Energy Transfer Partners, which is building the $3.8 billion pipeline, said Tuesday that the protesters were trespassing and that "lawless behaviour will not be tolerated."