erent 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, si