m Major Gladwyn had
formed an attachment betrayed the plot. Though this story is of doubtful
authenticity, there is no doubt that, in one way or another, the
commandant was amply warned that treachery was in the air. The sounds
of revelry from the Indian camps, the furtive glances of the redskins
lounging about the settlement, the very tension of the atmosphere, would
have been enough to put an experienced Indian fighter on his guard.

Accordingly when, on the fated morning, Pontiac and sixty redskins,
carrying under long blankets their shortened muskets, appeared before
the fort and asked admission, they were taken aback to find the whole
garrison under arms. On their way from the gate to the council house
they were obliged to march literally between rows of glittering steel.
Well might even Pontiac falter. With uneasy glances, the party crowded
into the council room, where Gladwyn and his officers sat waiting.
"Why," asked the chieftain stolidly, "do I see so many of my father's
young men standing in the street with their guns?" "To keep them in
training," was the laconic reply.

The scene that was planned was then carried out, except in one vital
particular. When, in the course of his speech professing strong
attachment to the English, the chieftain came to the point where he was
to give the signal for slaughter by holding forth the wampum belt of
peace inverted, he presented the emblem--to the accompaniment of a
significant clash of arms and roll of drums from the mustered garrison
outside--in the normal manner; and after a solemn warning from the
commandant that vengeance would follow any act of aggression, the
council broke up. To the forest leader's equivocal announcement that he
would bring all of his wives and children in a few days to shake hands
with their English fathers, Gladwyn deigned no reply.

Balked in his plans, the chief retired, but only to meditate fresh
treachery; and when, a few days later, with a multitude of followers,
he sought admission to the fort to assure "his fathers" that "evil birds
had sung lies in their ears," and was refused, he called all his forces
to arms, threw off his disguises, and began hostilities. For six months
the settlement was besieged with a persistence rarely displayed
in Indian warfare. At first the French inhabitants encouraged the
besiegers, but, after it became known that a final peace between England
and France had been concluded, they withheld further aid. Thro