And
wherever the messengers went the blood stained hatchet was seized,
and the war dance danced.
At length all was arranged and upon a certain day in May the Indians
were to rise in a body, and slay the British to a man. Only the
French were to be spared.
Pontiac himself was to attack Fort Detroit, and so quietly and
secretly were the preparations made that no one had the slightest
suspicion of what was going forward. But the day before the attack
a farmer's wife rowed across the river, and went to the Indian
village to buy some maple sugar. While she was there she was much
astonished to see some of the Indian braves filing off the barrels
of their guns. The sight made her uneasy. "I wonder what they are
up to?" she said.
When she got home she told her friends what she had seen.
"I believe they are up to some mischief," she repeated.
"I think so too," said a blacksmith, "they have been asking me to
lend them files and saws."
As the settlers talked the matter over they became at length so
uneasy that they sent to tell Major Gladwin, the commander of the
fort, of what they had seen. He, however, thought nothing of it.
But later in the day a young Indian girl came to see him, to bring
him a pair of moccasins which he had asked her to make. She seemed
very sad and downcast, and after she had given the Major the
moccasins she still loitered about.
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