The newcomers were eager to sally forth and meet the Indians. Gladwin, who had been made wary by long months of experience with Pontiac, strenuously opposed Dalyell’s plan of a night attack, and only gave his consent when the latter threatened to leave Detroit unless some such bold stroke was permitted. About two o’clock in the morning, on the thirty-first day of July, two hundred and fifty men marched in three detachments up the bank of the river, past the French cottages, to a little stream a mile and a half above the fort. Treacherous Canadians, who had in some way learned of the plan, had warned the Indians, and as the advance guard passed across the bridge which spanned the stream, the Indians dashed down from the heights above and poured volleys of musketry into the English ranks. The soldiers recoiled for a moment; then they pushed on over the bridge, but the savages vanished yelling into the darkness beyond. For a time the English pressed on, shot at from every side; but flesh and blood could not stand against this invisible enemy. The remaining troops endeavored to retreat in orderly fashion, but were soon under heavy fire again from a rear ambuscade of Indians. Major Rogers gained entrance to a house on the road and from its windows commanded the road with his guns and covered the retreat. The two bateaux which had followed the party up the river were loaded with the dead and wounded. Slowly the English made their way back under constant fire, and by eight o’clock the survivors gained the shelter of the fort. Of the two hundred and fifty who had gone out six hours before, one hundred and fifty-nine had been killed or wounded, and Captain Dalyell himself had lost his life. The victory of Bloody Run, as the stream was ever afterwards called, restored the confidence of Pontiac and brought many accessions to his side; but in spite of this disaster Major Gladwin, with his reënforced garrison of over two hundred able-bodied men, was confident of ultimate success.