Black Hawk had been urging the tribes of the Rock River region to join him, but had received so little encouragement that he was almost prepared to make peace with the advancing army. He was now a little way up the river with a party of forty or fifty warriors, a body-guard selected from his eight hundred men, who were encamped seven miles beyond. As the chief sat at supper on the evening of the 14th of May, he was told that a small party of white horsemen was making camp near by. The creek on whose banks the Americans had halted was lined with tall willows, which made a good protection for the camp. The vanguard of the two brigades had stopped, tied their horses to the trees, and begun to build fires for supper when three Indians appeared on a height nearly a mile away. It afterwards proved that these Indians were messengers from Black Hawk and were bearing a white flag of truce. The scouts at sight of the Indians rushed out and seized them. Black Hawk and his men, watching at a distance, saw their men captured and prepared hastily to meet and attack the whites. The squads of soldiers who had started in the chase were scattered without any regular order along half a mile of the valley. When the foremost of the pursuers came upon Black Hawk and his men hidden behind a growth of brush, the savages dashed out upon them with wild war-whoops. The soldiers thought that eight hundred Indians were behind their leader, and scattered in every direction. Their officers tried to rally them, but the force was disorganized. The men leaped on their horses and rode away. The Indians, astonished at this sudden development, feared that they were being led into an ambush; but they pursued the white men, killing those whom they overtook. At one or two places companies of soldiers turned and made a gallant fight, but most of them escaped on their swift horses. By twos and threes they straggled into the camp at Dixon’s Ferry, twenty-five miles away, with a story of defeat that spread a panic over the whole frontier. The army marched next day to the scene of the surprise; but Black Hawk and his men were gone, and it was not thought wise to pursue them farther north without a better supply of provisions. The unexpected and easy victory had encouraged Black Hawk and had brought many Indians of other tribes to his side.