schooner from the fort and learning the danger and need of
the garrison, they had pushed on with all possible speed until they
reached the mouth of the Detroit River. That night, as the boats were
drawn up on the shore and the men were getting supper, their camp was
suddenly surprised by a horde of Wyandot Indians. The British made an
attempt to defend themselves. But the Indians were upon them brandishing
their tomahawks and yelling like demons. Panic fear seized the white
men. They dropped their guns, fled to the boats, jumped in and pushed
off. The exultant Indians pressed after them and succeeded in retaking
all but two of their overloaded boats. The savages were now taking their
prisoners, about sixty in number, to the camp of Pontiac, where they
would be tortured and put to death.

The success of this bold venture probably would have ended the siege of
Detroit with victory for Pontiac, had the Canadians been as loyal to the
Indians as they pretended. But while they were giving the chief
assurances of good will and future help, some of them were secretly
succoring the English. Under the cover of night they smuggled cattle and
sheep and hogs to the famishing garrison.

Even with this aid the prospects of the little garrison were dark
enough. Every wind seemed to blow them ill news.

One afternoon the guard at the fort heard a weird chant and saw issuing
from the distant forest a file of warriors whose naked bodies were
smeared with black paint. Every one of them carried a pole over his
shoulder, and the horrified watchers knew well enough that from the end
of each pole fluttered the scalp of some Englishman. They learned from
the Canadians that night that Fort Sandusky had been burned and its
garrison murdered.

A little later the Indians offered to exchange some prisoners with the
English. The victims thus released by the Indians proved to be from Fort
St. Joseph. They told how that fort had been treacherously taken and
burned, and all the inmates but themselves slain.

A traveling priest brought word that the plot which had failed at
Detroit had succeeded only too well at Michillimackinac. Next came
tidings of the massacres at Fort Ouatanon on the Wabash River and at
Fort Miamis, on the Maumee.

Nor was the tale of fire and blood yet ended. A fugitive from the camp
of Pontiac reached Detroit one afternoon. It proved to be Ensign
Christie, the commanding officer at Presqu' Isle, near the eastern end
of Lake