the blankets, the coats, the guns, the fire-water, and use again the
skins, the bows, and the native foods, and be independent. "As for
these English, these dogs dressed in red, drive them from your hunting
grounds; drive them! And then when you are in distress, I will help
you."

The day was named by Pontiac. It should date from the change of the
moon, in the next month (or about May 7). At that time should begin
the work, by all the tribes, of seizing every English fort and trading
post in the Great Lakes country and west of the Alleghany Mountains.
The tribes nearest to each should attend to the matter--strike when
they heard that he had struck Detroit.

The date and the plan were approved. The council broke up. As
silently as they had come, the chiefs went home; some by water, some
afoot, and no white man knew of the meeting!

Detroit was the largest and most important of the English posts.
Pontiac himself would seize this by aid of his Ottawas, some
Potawatomis and Wyandots. To the Chippewas and the Sacs was given over
the next important fur-trade station, that of Mich-il-i-mac-ki-nac,
north.

CHAPTER VII

THE BLOODY BELT OF PONTIAC (1763-1769)

HOW AN INDIAN GIRL SAVED FORT DETROIT

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 diff