Signs that the Indians had retreated in a northwesterly direction being discovered, General Harmar, on the eighteenth, ordered Colonel Trotter of the militia to follow and attack them with a force of three hundred men. The detachment was provided with three days rations. About one mile from camp an Indian was pursued and killed. A little later a second solitary Indian scout was killed--after wounding one of his assailants. Trotter moved hither and thither with apparent aimlessness until nightfall when he returned to camp--to Harmar's disgust. The militia in camp had scattered in various directions searching for corn and other plunder which the savages had buried. The gun fired to call these into camp, Trotter affirmed, was thought to be an alarm signal for him to return. The men under Trotter displayed no more military characteristics than the prowling militia left at the encampment. Such men, it was sure, would suffer at the hands of the fierce, watchful enemy, if ever their turn should come. It came on the very next day! It was now Colonel Hardin's turn to strike a blow, and he was ordered out on the Indian path which ran northwest toward the Kickapoo towns. Proceeding about eleven miles from camp (Fort Wayne, Indiana) to near the point where the Goshen state road crosses the Eel River, the keen scouter John Armstrong saw important "signs" and heard an alarm gun in front. Hardin did not act on the advice and made no disposition of his troops for battle. Soon after, Armstrong discovered the fires of the Indian camp--but Hardin, scorning the enemy, pushed straight on. The Indian commander--the famous Miami warrior, Little Turtle--based his plans on just such recklessness. Deep in the brush and grass on either side of the trail his dogs of war crouched silent as cougars. The army had walked well into the trap before two crimson streaks of fire flashed out in the very faces of the troopers. The militia bolted at breakneck speed--some never stopping in their flight until they reached the Ohio River. A small band of regulars under Armstrong retired slightly and held their ground temporarily; then they retreated to Harmar's camp. This savage stroke cost heavily, the Indians killing almost an average of a white man apiece--the loss, about one hundred, equalling, probably, the number of the waylaying savage force. It was one of the bloodiest ambuscades in western history. Armstrong's journal for the nineteenth reads: "Attacked about one hundred Indians fifteen miles west of the Miami village; and from the dastardly conduct of the militia, the troops were obliged to retreat. I lost one sergeant, and twenty-one out of thirty men of my command. The Indians on this occasion gained a complete victory--having killed, in the whole, near one hundred men, which was about their number. Many of the militia threw away their arms without firing a shot, ran through the federal troops and threw them in disorder." Of the Indians Armstrong adds "they fought