ched the Delaware towns his reception was ominous. The young warriors
said: "Anybody can see with half an eye that the English only mean to
cheat us. Let us knock the messengers in the head." Some of them had
attacked an English outpost, and had been repulsed; hence, in the words
of Post, "They were possessed with a murdering spirit, and with bloody
vengeance were thirsty and drunk. I said: 'As God has stopped the mouths
of the lions that they could not devour Daniel, so he will preserve us
from their fury.'" The chiefs and elders were of a different mind from
their fierce and capricious young men. They met during the evening in
the log-house where Post and his party lodged; and here a French officer
presently arrived with a string of wampum from the commandant, inviting
them to help him drive back the army of Forbes. The string was
scornfully rejected. "They kicked it from one to another as if it were a
snake. Captain Peter took a stick, and with it flung the string from one
end of the room to the other, and said: 'Give it to the French captain;
he boasted of his fighting, now let us see him fight. We have often
ventured our lives for him, and got hardly a loaf of bread in return;
and now he thinks we shall jump to serve him.' Then we saw the French
captain mortified to the uttermost. He looked as pale as death. The
Indians discoursed and joked till midnight, and the French captain sent
messengers at midnight to Fort Duquesne."

There was a grand council, at which the French officer was present; and
Post delivered the peace message from the council at Easton, along with
another with which Forbes had charged him. "The messages pleased all the
hearers except the French captain. He shook his head in bitter grief,
and often changed countenance. Isaac Still [_an Indian_] ran him down
with great boldness, and pointed at him, saying, 'There he sits!' They
all said: 'The French always deceived us!' pointing at the French
captain; who, bowing down his head, turned quite pale, and could look no
one in the face. All the Indians began to mock and laugh at him. He
could hold it no longer, and went out."[658]

[Footnote 658: _Journal of Christian Frederic Post, October, November,
1758._]

The overtures of peace were accepted, and the Delawares, Shawanoes, and
Mingoes were no longer enemies of the English. The loss was the more
disheartening to the French, since, some weeks before, they had gained a
success which they hoped would c