At this time the fort was garrisoned
by ninety British regulars. One day, outside the walls on the
surrounding plateau, several hundred savages were encamped, ostensibly
for purposes of trade, some of them killing time by playing the Indian
game of ball--the _baggatiway_ of the red-man, _la jeu de la crosse_ of
the voyageur. Henry, acting upon a veiled warning by Wawatam, suggested
to the officer in command extra precaution.

"I told him," said he, while Brock drank in every word, "that Indian
treachery was proverbial." Now this recital was of the deepest interest
to our hero, for Mackinaw, then in the possession of the United States,
held the key to the Michigan frontier and control of the upper lakes.
While the huge log fire that roared in the chimney cast light and shadow
on polished wall and the oak beams of the big dining-hall, Brock puffed
away at his huge _partiga_, weighing every word that fell from the
bearded lips of the trader.

"Major Errington," continued Henry, "while thanking me, laughed at my
forebodings. Then Wawatam urged me, as his adopted brother, to depart
for Sault Ste. Marie. But I delayed and once more sought Errington, who
still ridiculed my fears. While I was yet expostulating with him we
heard the louder shouts of the Indians. They had rushed through the fort
gateway into the enclosure within the palisades in pursuit of a lost
ball. This was but a ruse to gain admittance, for in a moment the
laughter and shouts changed to wild yells and warwhoops. The guard was
overpowered in a flash, and in the attack that followed almost the
entire garrison was tomahawked and scalped."

"Ah!" said Brock, "so British lethargy and self-complaisance succumbed
to Indian duplicity."

Then his thoughts turned to Niagara. He saw the open portals of Fort
George, and Tuscarora youths playing the Indian game of ball in the
meadows of the Mohawk village.

"Those who escaped massacre at Mackinaw," said Henry, refilling his
stone pipe and resuming his story, "were preserved for a worse fate.
Pontiac's allies--and you, Colonel, know something of these matters from
the tales told you by the officers of the North-West Company--entered on
a carnival of blood. From a garret, where a Pawnee Indian woman had
secreted me, I saw the captured soldiers tomahawked and scalped, and
some butchered like so many cattle, just as required for the cannibal
feast that followed."

"Tortured?" interrogated Brock.

"Tortured!" repeat