ed the French. They were
then holding part of present Wisconsin and all of Michigan.

Now in the fall of 1760 France had lost Canada. She was about to
surrender to England all her forts and trading posts of the Upper
Mississippi basin, from the Great Lakes to the Ohio River.

In November Major Robert Rogers, a noted American Ranger, of New
Hampshire birth, with two hundred hardy American woodsmen in twelve
whaleboats, and with a herd of fat cattle following the shores, was on
his way from Montreal, by water, to carry the English tongue and the
British flag to the French posts of the Great Lakes.

He had passed several posts, and was swinging around for Detroit, when
a storm of sleet and rain kept him in camp amidst the thick timber
where today stands the city of Cleveland, Ohio.

Here he was met by a party of Indians from the west, bearing a message.

[Illustration: PONTIAC, THE RED NAPOLEON. From a painting]

"You must go no farther," they said, "Pontiac is coming. He is the
king and lord of this country you are in. Wait till he can see you
with his own eyes."

That same day in the afternoon Chief Pontiac himself appeared. Major
Rogers saw a dark, medium tall but very powerful Indian, aged near
fifty years, wearing not only richly embroidered clothes but also "an
air of majesty and princely grandeur."

Pontiac spoke like a great chief and ruler.

"I have come to find out what you are doing in this place, and how you
dare to pass through my country without my permission."

Major Rogers replied smoothly.

"I have no design against you or your people. I am here by orders from
your new English fathers, to remove the French from your country, so
that we may trade in peace together."

And he gave the chief a pledge of wampum. Pontiac returned another
belt.

"I shall stand in the path you are walking, till morning," was all that
he would say; and closed the matter for the night.

During the storm of the next few days he smoked the pipe of peace with
the major, and promised safe passage for him, to Detroit.

Thus Major Rogers was the first of the English Americans to be face to
face with one of the master minds of the Indian Americans.

This Pontiac was head chief not alone of the Ottawas, but of the
Chippewas and Potawatomis. Rumor has declared that he was born a dark
Catawba of that fierce fighting nation in South Carolina, who
frequently journeyed north to fall upon the northern tribes. But his