of the President; that in the mean time no hostilities should be committed.” Had Harrison’s vacillation been due to consciousness of strength, his officers would have had no just reason for remonstrance; but he estimated his force at about eight hundred effective men, and the Indians at more than six hundred.[99] He knew that no victory over the Northern Indians had ever been won where the numbers were anything like equal.[100] Before him was an unknown wilderness; behind him was a line of retreat, one hundred and fifty miles long, and he had supplies for very few days. He could not trust the Indians; and certainly they could not trust him, for he meant in any case to surprise their town the next night. Delay was dangerous only to the whites,--advantageous only to the Indians. Daveiss felt so strongly the governor’s hesitation that he made no secret of his discontent, and said openly not only that the army ought to attack,[101] but also that it would be attacked before morning, or would march home with nothing accomplished.[102] Indeed, if Harrison had not come there to destroy the town, he had no sufficient military reason for being there at all. Having decided to wait, Harrison had next to choose a camping-ground. The army marched on, looking for some spot on the river where wood as well as water could be obtained, until they came within one hundred and fifty yards of the town, when the Indians, becoming alarmed, called on them to stop. Harrison halted his men and asked the Indians to show him a place suitable for his purpose, which they did;[103] and the troops filed off in front of the town, at right angles to the Wabash, till they reached a creek less than a mile to the northwest. Next to the town was a marshy prairie; beyond the marsh the ground rose about ten feet to a level covered with oaks; and then about a hundred yards farther it suddenly dropped to the creek behind, where the banks were thick with willow and brushwood. No spot in the neighborhood was better suited for a camp than this saddle-back between the marsh and the brook, but Harrison saw that it offered serious disadvantages. “I found the ground destined for the encampment,” he reported, “not altogether such as I could wish it. It was, indeed, admirably calculated for regular troops that were opposed to regulars, but it afforded great facility to the approach of the savages.”