This repulse did not check for a moment the activity of the Indians, though for a long time we hear nothing more of Philip. On the 2d of September they slew eight men at Northfield and on the 4th they surrounded and butchered Captain Beers and most of his company of thirty-six marching to the relief of that village. The next day but one, as Major Robert Treat came up the road with his 100 Connecticut soldiers, they found long poles planted by the wayside bearing the heads of their unfortunate comrades. They in turn were assaulted, but beat off the enemy, and brought away the people of Northfield. That village was abandoned, and presently Deerfield shared its fate and the people were crowded into Hadley. Yet worse remained to be seen. A large quantity of wheat had been left partly threshed at Deerfield, and on the 11th of September eighteen wagons were sent up with teamsters and farmers to finish the threshing and bring in the grain. They were escorted by Captain Lothrop, with his train-band of ninety picked men, known as the "Flower of Essex," perhaps the best drilled company in the colony. The threshing was done, the wagons were loaded, and the party made a night march southward. At seven in the morning, as they were fording a shallow stream in the shade of overarching woods, they were suddenly overwhelmed by the deadly fire of 700 ambushed Nipmucks, and only eight of them escaped to tell the tale. A "black and fatal" day was this, says the chronicler, "the saddest that ever befell New England." To this day the memory of the slaughter at Bloody Brook survives, and the visitor to South Deerfield may read the inscription over the grave in which Major Treat's men next day buried all the victims together. The Indians now began to feel their power, and on the 5th of October they attacked Springfield and burned thirty houses there. [Sidenote: Ambuscade at Bloody Brook, September 12]