aves. These lakes, these woods and
mountains were left to us by our ancestors. They are our inheritance,
and we will part with them to none!"

Though these Ottawas and Chippewas were independent of those about
Detroit, they had eagerly taken hold of Pontiac's war belt. The
missionary priest was able for a while to restrain the Ottawas. The
Chippewas, gathered in from their winter's hunting, determined to strike
the first blow.

On the fourth day of June, which was the English king's birthday, they
came and invited the garrison to look at a game of ball, or baggattaway,
which they were going to play on the long sandy beach, against some
Sac Indians. The fortress gates stood open. The day was very warm and
discipline was relaxed. Nobody noticed that squaws, flocking inside the
fort, had tomahawks and scalping knives hidden under their blankets,
though a few Englishmen afterward remembered that the squaws were
strangely huddled in wrappings on a day hot for that climate.

The young English trader, Alexander Henry, has left a careful account of
the massacre at Fort Michilimackinac. He did not go out to see the ball
game, because he had important letters to write and send by a canoe just
starting to Canada. Officers and men, believing the red tribes friendly,
lounged about unarmed. Whitewashed French houses shone in the sun, and
the surge of the straits sounded peacefully on the beach. Nobody could
dream that when the shouting Indians drove the ball back from the
farthest stake, their cries would suddenly change to war whoops.

At that horrid yell Henry sprang up and ran to a window of his house.
He saw Chippewas filling the fort, and with weapons snatched from the
squaws, cutting down and scalping Englishmen. He caught his own gun from
its rack, expecting to hear the drum beat to arms. But the surprised
garrison were unable even to sound an alarm.

Seeing that not a Frenchman was touched, Henry slipped into the house of
his next neighbor, a Canadian named Langlade. The whole family were at
the front windows, looking at the horrible sights in the fort; but an
Indian slave, a Pani, or Pawnee woman, beckoned to him and hid him in
the attic, locking the door and carrying away the key.

The attic probably had one or two of those tunnel-like dormer windows
built in the curving roof of all French houses. Henry found a place
where he could look out. He saw his countrymen slaughtered without being
able to help them, and it was