The creek was lined on both sides with tall willows, while just a little to the north the ground was covered with a growth of small black oak trees, denominated generally scrub oak. These same “scrub oak,” grown to thrice the thickness of a man’s body, stand to this day, and, judging from a present-day standpoint, one can easily see how a handful of resolute men could defend themselves there against overwhelming odds. To the willows the horses were tied, fires were made, coffee pots put to boiling and a general preparation for supper was going forward, when three Indians appeared in camp bearing a white flag.[120] They were taken in, but in the haste of supper preparations and the absence of an interpreter, their mission, if for peace, was not discovered at once. As a matter of fact, however, Black Hawk had in his lifetime disregarded so many treaties and flags of truce, that it is no small wonder some of the men were for dispatching them on the spot. An abiding sense of his many misfeasances, no doubt, prompted him to station five other Indians on a neighboring hill, some three-quarters of a mile to the north, where they might watch and report the manner in which his flag was received. The presence of these five Indians on the hill, unexplained, may rightfully be styled a misprision, and sufficient to set the camp into a spasm of turmoil. About twenty of Eads’ men mounted their horses to charge the five Indians, who in turn wheeled to run away. This action was taken by the excited and undisciplined troops to mean a retreat, and Eads’ men immediately began firing upon their retiring foe. Other small squads joined the haphazard pursuit, in the course of which two of the five Indians were killed. The camp became a bedlam, and while Stillman, Bailey, Adams, Eads and other officers tried desperately to restrain the troops and restore order, as well might they have commanded the rains to cease and the sun to return for half an hour as to have expected obedience from those raw and independent spirits. They were having the “fun” for which they had enlisted. Black Hawk the while was at the mouth of the creek with half a hundred warriors, where he had been giving a dog feast to Shabbona, Waubansee and other influential Pottowatomies in his frantic efforts to secure reinforcements against the whites.