“Pontiac was the son of an Ojibway woman, and chief of that tribe, also of the Ottawas and the Pottawattamies, who were in alliance with the Ojibways.  In 1746 he and his warriors defended the French at Detroit against an attack by some of the northern tribes, and in 1755 he took part in their fight with Braddock, acting as the leader of the Ottawas.”

“I wonder,” said Grace, as her father paused for a moment in his narrative, “if he was the Indian who, in that fight, aimed so many times at Washington, yet failed to hit him, and at last gave up the attempt to kill him, concluding that he must be under the special protection of the Great Spirit.”

“That I cannot tell,” her father said.  “But whoever that Indian may have been I think he was right in his conclusion—­that God protected and preserved our Washington that he might play the important part he did in securing his country’s freedom.

“But to return to my story.  Pontiac hated the English, though after the surrender of Quebec, some years after Braddock’s defeat—­finding that the French had been driven from Canada, he acquiesced in the surrender of Detroit to the English, and persuaded four hundred Detroit Indians, who were lying in ambush, intending to cut off the English there, to relinquish their design.

“But he hated the English, and in 1762 he sent messengers to every tribe between the Ottawa and the Mississippi to engage them all in a war of extermination against the English.”

“Americans too, papa?” asked little Elsie, who, sitting upon his knee, was listening very attentively to his narrative.

“Yes,” he replied, “our States were English colonies then, for the War of the Revolution did not begin until about thirteen years later.  The messengers of Pontiac carried with them the red-stained tomahawk and a wampum war-belt, the Indian fashion of indicating that war was purposed, and those to whom the articles were sent were invited to take part in the conflict.

“All the tribes to whom they were sent joined in the conspiracy, and the end of May was decided upon as the time when their bloody purpose should be carried out, each tribe disposing of the garrison of the nearest fort; then all were to act together in an attack upon the settlements.

“On the 27th of April, 1763, a great council was held near Detroit, at which Pontiac made an oration detailing the wrongs and indignities the Indians had suffered at the hands of the English, and prophesying their extermination.

“He told also of a tradition that a Delaware Indian had been admitted into the presence of the Great Spirit, who told him that his race must return to the customs and weapons of their ancestors, throw away those they had gotten from the white men, abjure whiskey, and take up the hatchet against the English.  ‘These dogs dressed in red,’ he called them, ’who have come to rob you of your hunting-grounds and drive away the game.’