When night fell Paully and two or three others, all that remained of the garrison, were placed in canoes, and these were headed for Detroit.  As the prisoners looked back over the calm waters of Sandusky Bay, they saw the blockhouse burst into flames.  Paully and his men were landed at the Ottawa camp, where a horde of howling Indians, including women and children, beat them and compelled them to dance and sing for the entertainment of the rabble.  Preparations were made to torture Paully to death at the stake; but an old squaw, who had recently lost her husband, was attracted by the handsome, dark-skinned young ensign, and adopted him in place of her deceased warrior.  Paully’s hair was cut close; he was dipped into the stream to wash the white blood from his veins; and finally he was dressed and painted as became an Ottawa brave.

News of the destruction of Fort Sandusky was brought to Gladwyn by a trader named La Brosse, a resident of Detroit, and a few days later a letter was received from Paully himself.  For nearly two months Paully had to act the part of an Ottawa warrior.  But early in July—­Pontiac being in a state of great rage against the British—­his squaw placed him in a farmhouse for safe keeping.  In the confusion arising out of the attack on Fort Detroit on the 4th of the month, and the murder of Captain Campbell, he managed to escape, by the aid, it is said, of an Indian maiden.  He was pursued to within musket-shot of the walls of Detroit.  When he entered the fort, so much did he resemble an Indian that at first he was not recognized.

The next fort to fall into the hands of the Indians was St Joseph, on the east shore of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the St Joseph river.  This was the most inaccessible of the posts on the Great Lakes.  The garrison here lived lonely lives.  Around them were thick forests and swamps, and in front the desolate waters of the sea-like lake.  The Indians about St Joseph had long been under the influence of the French.  This place had been visited by La Salle; and here in 1688 the Jesuit Allouez had established a mission.  In 1763 the post was held by Ensign Francis Schlosser and fourteen men.  For months the little garrison had been without news from the east, when, on May 25, a party of Potawatomis from about Detroit arrived on a pretended visit to their relations living in the village at St Joseph, and asked permission to call on Schlosser.  But before a meeting could be arranged, a French trader entered the fort and warned the commandant that the Potawatomis intended to destroy the garrison.

Schlosser at once ordered his sergeant to arm his men, and went among the French settlers seeking their aid.  Even while he was addressing them a shrill death-cry rang out—­the sentry at the gate had fallen a victim to the tomahawk of a savage.  In an instant a howling mob of Potawatomis under their chief Washee were within the stockade.  Eleven of the garrison were straightway put to death, and the fort was plundered.  Schlosser and the three remaining members of his little band were taken to Detroit by some Foxes who were present with the Potawatomis.  On June 10 Schlosser had the good fortune to be exchanged for two chiefs who were prisoners in Fort Detroit.