Old Fort Detroit was a stockade twenty feet high, in the form of a square about two-thirds of a mile around. It enclosed a church and eighty or one hundred houses, mainly of French settlers with a sprinkling of English traders.
In the block-houses at the corners and protecting the gates, light cannon were mounted. The garrison consisted of only one hundred and twenty men of the Eightieth Foot. In the village there were perhaps forty other men.
On both sides of the river lay the fertile farms of the French settlers. Back of the farms on the east or Canadian side, and about five miles from Detroit, was the teeming village of Pontiac"s Ottawas.
Potawatomis and Wyandots also lived near. At Pontiac"s call there waited more than a thousand warriors.
The set time approached. On May 1 Pontiac and forty chiefs and warriors entered the fort, and danced the calumet, a peace dance, for the pleasure of their officers. Pontiac said to Major Gladwyn that he would return, at the change of the moon, May 7, or in one week, to hold a council with him, and "brighten the chain of peace with the English."
The major agreed. He was a very foolish man, for a chief. Having returned to his village, Pontiac called a different kind of a council, there--a war council of one hundred chiefs. They were to have their people cut off the ends of muskets that should be carried concealed under the blankets. Sixty chiefs and warriors should go with him into the council chamber at the fort; the others should linger in the streets of the town and at the fort gates.
He would speak to the major with a belt, white on the one side, green on the other. When he turned the belt and presented it wrong end first, let every warrior kill an English soldier, beginning with the officers. At the sound let every warrior outside the council use gun and hatchet.
On May 5 a French settler"s wife crossed the river to buy maple-sugar and deer-meat at the Ottawa village. She saw the warriors busy filing at their gun-barrels--shortening the guns to scarce a yard of length.
This was a curious thing to do. When she went back to the post she spoke about it.
"That," said the blacksmith, "explains why those fellows have been borrowing all my files and hack-saws. They wouldn"t tell me what for.
Something"s brewing."
When Major Gladwyn was informed, still he would not believe. But the fur-traders at the post insisted that when an Indian shortened his gun, he meant mischief. The opinion of fur-traders carried no weight with Major Gladwyn, the British officer.
The next evening Catharine, a pretty Ojibwa girl who lived with the Potawatomis, came to see him in his quarters. She was his favorite.
She had agreed to make him a pair of handsome moccasins, from an elk hide. Now she brought the moccasins, and the rest of the hide.
Usually she had been much pleased to look upon and talk with the handsome young major in the red clothes. This time her face was clouded, she hung her head, and spoke hardly at all. Her eager girlishness had vanished. The major"s delight with the moccasins failed to cheer her up.
Trying to win her smiles, he told her the moccasins were so beautiful that he wished to give them to a friend. Would she take the elk-hide away with her, and make another pair of moccasins for himself!
She finally left, with strangely slow step, and backward glances. At sunset, when the gates of the fort were to be closed, the guard found her still inside. As she would not go, the sergeant took word to the major.
"She won"t talk with me, sir," he reported.
"Send her in and I will talk with her," ordered the major.
Catharine came, downcast, silent, and timid.
"Why have you not gone before the gates are shut, Catharine?"
She hesitated.
"I did not wish to take away the skin that is yours."
"But you did take it away, as far as the gate."
She hesitated more.
"Yes, that is so. But if I take it outside I can never return it."
"Why not?"
"I cannot tell. I am afraid."
"You can talk freely. Nothing that you say shall go to other ears. If you bring me news of value you will be well rewarded, and no one shall know."
Catharine loved the major. Presently she told him of the mind of Pontiac, and the deed planned for tomorrow morning.
A cold fear clutched the heart of Major Gladwyn. He recalled the shortened guns, he recalled the b.l.o.o.d.y Belt, he recalled the date made with him for a big council on the morrow. At last he rather believed.
So he sent away the trembling Catharine, that she might go to her village. He held a council with his officers.
Here they were, with only one hundred and twenty soldiers, and less than three weeks" provisions, cut off by one thousand, two thousand, three thousand merciless Indian warriors, and by the French settlers and traders who probably would be glad to have the English killed.
"The English are to be struck down, but no Frenchman is to be harmed,"
had said Catharine.
That looked bad indeed.
This night guards were doubled along the parapets, and in the block-houses. The major himself walked guard most of the night. From the distant villages of the Ottawas, the Wyandots, and the Potawatomis drifted the clamor of dances--an ugly sound, full of meaning, now.
Precisely at ten o"clock in the morning a host of bark canoes from the Ottawa side of the Detroit River slanted across the current, and made landing. Pontiac approached at the head of a long file of thirty chiefs and as many warriors. They walked with measured, stately tread.
Every man was closely wrapped in a gay blanket.
They were admitted through the gate of the fort, but it was closed against the ma.s.s of warriors, women and children who pressed after.
As Pontiac, with his escort, stalked for the council room, his quick glances saw that the soldiers were formed, under arms, and moving from spot to spot, and that a double rank had been stationed around the headquarters.
In the council chamber he noted, too, that each officer wore his sword, and two pistols!
"Why," asked Pontiac, of Major Gladwyn, "do I see so many of my father"s young men standing in the street with their guns?"
"It is best that my young men be exercised as soldiers, or they will grow lazy and forget," answered the major.
Ha! Pontiac knew. Somehow his plans had been betrayed; his game was up, unless he chose an open fight.
His chiefs and warriors sat uneasily. They all feared death. By Indian law they ought to be killed for having intended to shed blood in a calumet council.
Pontiac started his talk. He acted confused, as though he was not certain what course to pursue.
Once he did seem about to offer the belt wrong end first, as the signal--and Major Gladwyn, still sitting, slightly raised his hand.
Instantly from outside the door sounded the clash of arms and the quick roll of a drum, to show that the garrison was on the alert. The officers half drew their swords.
Pontiac flushed yet darker. He stammered, and offering the belt right end first, closed his talk, and sat down again.
Major Gladwyn made a short reply. He said that the English were glad to be friends, as long as their red brothers deserved it; but any act of war would be severely punished.
That was all. The major let the Indians file out again. Pontiac knew.
He was too great a leader, in the Indian way, to be balked by one defeat. He actually proposed another council; he actually persuaded the foolish major to send out to him two officers, for a peace talk.
One of the officers barely escaped from captivity, the other never came back.