Several years after this occurrence, the Dakotas, after having made a formal peace with the Ojibways, and agreed to hunt in peace and friendship, suddenly attacked a small camp of hunters and killed several women and children. During the summer following, the Ojibways collected to the number of sixty warriors, and proceeded down the St. Croix River, to revenge this act of perfidy. They discovered their enemies encamped in a large village near the mouth of Willow River. They approached the camp during the middle of a pitchy dark night, and the chiefs placed two or three men to stand by each lodge, into which, at a given signal, they were to fire a volley, aiming at the spots where they supposed the enemy were lying asleep. Immediately loading their guns, when the inmates of the lodges would jump up in affright, they were to fire another volley and immediately retreat, as even the lodges of the Dakotas many times outnumbered the warriors of the Ojibways, and the enemy were too strong to risk with them a protracted fight. They judged also that the Dakotas were preparing to go on a war party, from the war-songs, drumming, and dancing which they had kept up throughout the village during the evening.
The orders of the Ojibway leader were strictly adhered to, and but two volleys were poured into the enemies' lodges, when the party suddenly retreated. The Dakotas, however, recovering from the first surprise of the sudden and unexpected attack, grasped their arms and rushing forth, a hundred warriors were soon on the rear of the midnight invaders. The Ojibways, anxious for a fight, made a stand, and a fierce fight ensued in the darkness, the combatants aiming at the flashes of their enemies' musketry. The bravest warriors gradually approached to within a few feet of one another, in the midst of the darkness, when a Dakota chief was heard to give orders to his people in a loud voice, to divide into two parties, and making circuits
