or Florida and other Spanish territory east of the Mississippi.

In Havana, where he was one day roaming about unarmed, Colonel Putnam
met with an adventure which nearly cost him his life and made him the
involuntary owner of a negro slave. Seeing a Spaniard beating a black
man with a bamboo cane, he darted in with his old time impetuosity, and
seizing the stick, wrenched it away from its owner, who, joined by other
exasperated Cubans, turned upon the American and compelled him to flee
to a vessel for safety. Here he was followed by the negro, who so
successfully appealed to the soldier's tender sensibilities that he
allowed him to accompany him home to Connecticut. There he served him
faithfully, and when his master died he bequeathed to "Old Dick"--as he
was called--the "Havana cane," of which the colored Cuban exile was
inordinately proud.

Israel Putnam was now a man of substance, more than ever looked up to by
his neighbors and honored by the community in which he dwelt. Taking up
his duties of citizenship where he had left them on being summoned to
war, he threw off the military habit as he might an old garment now no
longer of service, and became again the contented, humble farmer. In
1763, about the time the treaty of peace between England and France was
signed, he was elected "selectman" of the town in which he lived, and
the ensuing spring appointed to receive the heads of such crows as
should be killed in the township, for which a bounty was offered of
sixpence each! Such humble offices as these he by no means despised,
always lending a hand to whatever appeared in the guise of duty.

It became his duty, he thought, to go to war again, in the year 1764,
when the Indians, neglected by both French and English, who had now no
further need of their services, found themselves in danger of being
ground between the upper and the nether millstones. They looked with
apprehension upon the forts the English were erecting on every hand, and
finally rose in rebellion, under the leadership of Pontiac, chief of the
Ottawas. He organized a widespread conspiracy among the Indian tribes,
believing he could eventually exterminate "those dogs dressed in red,"
as he called the English. The rising was appointed for the 7th of May,
1763, and no less than eight English garrisons were massacred, a
five-months' siege ensuing at Detroit, where Pontiac himself commanded
the Indians. The attacks were intermitted in the winter, but as th