capture Detroit, which from its
position was of the first importance to the holding of the region of the
Northwest. It must be remembered that at that time Detroit was a fort
and not a city; and Pontiac saw that his best chance to capture it was
by stratagem. The Indians were nominally at peace with the English; but
several of the tribes--among them the Ojibwas and Wyandots--assented to
the scheme proposed by Pontiac, and assembled before Detroit. It was
Pontiac's plan to propose to Major Gladwyn, in command at Detroit, a
meeting inside the fort, where a belt of wampum--the sign of
amity--should be presented by the chief and everything done that might
promote friendly relations. Suspecting nothing, Gladwyn assented, and
Pontiac's scheme seemed sure of fruition.

It chanced, however, that among the Ojibwas was a beautiful girl, named
Catherine, and that she came under the notice of Gladwyn. He was
enamored of her beauty and proposed to her to become his mistress; and
she, honored by the notice of the handsome Englishman, yielded to his
desire. It would seem that at first the girl did not know that evil
threatened the British; but one evening, when she came to the fort to
visit her lover, she was noticed by him to be absent and sad. At first
she would not tell him the reason of her grief; but at last, urged by
her love to treachery to her own people, she told him that the Indians
had been engaged in filing off the barrels of their rifles so that they
could conceal these weapons beneath their cloaks, and that the next day,
when the peace conference was to be held, the presentation by Pontiac of
the belt of wampum was to be the signal for the armed warriors to rise
upon the unsuspecting and weaponless officers in a massacre which should
become general when the gates of the fort had been seized by those
deputed for the purpose. Gladwyn was not the man to neglect such a
warning; and the next day, when Pontiac, surrounded by his apparently
peaceful but really armed warriors, was about to hand the wampum belt to
Gladwyn, a drum beat, the doors of the council chamber were thrown open,
and there appeared at every entrance a file of soldiers with levelled
muskets, while in the streets was heard the tramp of marching men
hurriedly assembling at the point of danger. Pontiac saw that he was
betrayed, and, with quick presence of mind, concluded his speech with
some words of friendship, and sat down without having made the intended
si