Heroes of the Middle West: The French

from their own villages on opposite shores to the Ottawas on the south bank, facing Isle Cochon. Their women and children squatted about huge fires to see the war dance. T

eaped into the ring and began to chase an imaginary foe, chanting his own deeds and those of his forefathers. He was a muscular rather than a tall Indian, with high, striking features. His dark skin was colored by war paint, and he had stripped himself of everything but ornaments. Ottawa

scalping an enemy, struck the painted post with his tomahawk, and raised the awful war whoop. His young braves stamped and yelled with him. Another leaped into the ring, sung his deeds, and struck the painted post, warrior after warrior following, until a wild maze of si

e tribe. All the Algonquin stock and the Senecas of the Iroquois were united with him. From the small oven-shaped hut on Isle Cochon, where he lived with his squaws and children, to Michilimackinac, from Michilimackinac to the lower Mississippi, and from the eastern end

hat chain of forts stretching from Lake Erie down to the Ohio-Presqu' Isle, Le B?uf, Venango, Ligonier-had been given up to the English, as well as western posts-Detroit, Fort Miami, Ouatanon on the Wabash, and Michilimac

e Flag o

unition, on which they had learned to depend, instead of their bows and arrows. For two years they had borne the rapid spread of English settlements on land which they st

ac himself knew this could not be done; but he thought it possible, by striking the English forts all at once, to res

against them. His work had been secret, and he had taken pains to appear very friendly to the garrison of Detroit, who were used to the n

wenty-five feet high. The houses were roofed with bark or thatched with straw. The streets were mere paths, but a wide road went all around the town next to the palisades. Detroit was almost square in shape, with a bastion, or fortified projection, at each corner, and a blockhou

rom the village of French houses up and down the shore. Dwellers outside had their own gardens and orchards, also surrounded by pickets. These French people,

hat dewy breath which seems to exhale from fresh-water seas. Indians swarmed early around the fort, pretending that the young men were that day going to play a game of ball in the fields, while Pontiac and sixty old chiefs

fort gates. The gates on the water side usually stood open until evening, for the English, contemptuously careless of savages, let squaws and warriors come and go at

ding under arms. To this day it is not known who secretly warned the fort of Pontiac's conspiracy; but the most reliable trad

or not holding the chief when he had him. The tribes could not rush through the closed gates at Pontiac's signal, which was to be the

spect, "why are so many of your young me

t for exercise and discipl

ir leader appear again. But he came out, after going through the form of a council, mortified by his failure to seize the fort, and sulkily crossed the river to his lodge. Al

the officer, "but the crowd you h

ed Pontiac, "to enjoy the frag

your rabble in the fo

tack. Though it had wooden walls, it was well defended. The Indians, after their first fierce onset, fighting in their own way, behind trees and sheltered by buildings outside the for

gave to English victims of the Indians. One old man stuck his hands out of his grave. The French covered them with earth. But next time they passed that way they saw the stiff, entreating hands, like pale fungi,

she narrowly escaped capture. A convoy of boats, bringing the usual spring supplies, was taken, leaving Detroit to face famine. Yet it refused to

rt Ouatanon, on the Wabash, a little south of where Lafayette, in the state of Indiana, now stands; Fort Miami, Pres

into the blockhouse of the fort and prepared

he men could shoot down. Loopholes were also fixed in the upper walls, wide within, but closing to narrow slits on the outside. A sentry box or lookout was sometimes put at the top of the roof. With the door barred by iron

were set on fire, but the defenders of the blockhouse kept it from catching the flames by tearing off shingles from the roof when they began to burn. The mining party reached the well, and buckets of water were drawn up and passed through the tunnel to the blockhouse. Greatly exhausted, the soldiers held out until next day, when, having surrendered honorably, they were all taken prisoners as they left the scorched and battered log towe

most important post

. Ignace. To this day, searching along a beach of deep, yielding sand, so different from the rocky strands of the islands, you may find at the fo

Detroit. After Father Marquette's old mission had been abandoned and the buildings burned, another small mission was begun at L'Arbre Croche, not far

to a young English trader named Alexander Henry, who arrived after

We are not your slaves. These lakes, these woods and mountains were left to us

ken hold of Pontiac's war belt. The missionary priest was able for a while to restrain the Otta

ng sandy beach, against some Sac Indians. The fortress gates stood open. The day was very warm and discipline was relaxed. Nobody noticed that squaws, flocking inside the fort, had to

write and send by a canoe just starting to Canada. Officers and men, believing the red tribes friendly, lounged about unarmed. Whitewashed French houses shone in the sun, and the surge of

with weapons snatched from the squaws, cutting down and scalping Englishmen. He caught his own gun from its

glade. The whole family were at the front windows, looking at the horrible sights in the fort; but an Indian sla

ouses. Henry found a place where he could look out. He saw his countrymen slaughtered without being able to hel

s fini

ther any Englishmen were hid there. So thin was the attic floor

the Frenchman. "You may

demanded the key. While some one went for the key, Henry crept into a kind of tunnel made by a heap of birch-bark vessels, used in the maple-sugar season. The door wa

smeared with blood, which could be seen through the dusk; and while searching they told Mo

ept out of hiding. There was a feather bed on the floor and he stretched hi

ight and a fierce summer rain beat upon the roof, dripping through cracks of the heat-dried bark. Madame Langlade had come to stop a l

did not then know was besieged, and with all his stores captured or destroyed by the Indians, he had no prov

t they might kill her children if they found Henry sheltered in the house, that she told her husband where he was and be

up, expect

fted a knife to plunge into his breast. White man and red man looked intently at each other, and the savage, perhaps moved by t

n absent the day of the attack Wawatam put Henry in his canoe, carried him across the strait to Michilimackinac Island, and hid him in a cave, which is now called Skull Rock by the islanders, because Henry found ancient skulls and bones in the bottom of it. As the island was held sacred by the Indians, this was probably one

s, before he escaped and returned safely to Ca

ffered for savage scalps. One renegade Englishman, named David Owen, came back from ado

nch to help him, and refused to believe that their king had made a treaty at Paris, giving up to the English all French claims in the New World east of the Mississippi. His cause was lost. He

at Close of Fr

ndian, needing supplies to carry on his war, used civilized methods to get them on credit. He gave promissory notes wr

rt Chartres, the last French post. They might come up the Mississippi from New Orleans, or they might come down the Ohio. The Iroquois had always c

inois Indians to take u

estroy you as fire does the prairie g

d Fort Chartres, cherishing it and urging the last French commandant, St. Ange de Bellerive, to take up arms with him, until that poor captain, torm

back. Captain Pittman came up the river. Pontiac turned him back. Captain Morris started from Detroit, and Pontiac squatted defiantly in his way. Lieutenant Frazer descended the Ohio. Pontiac caught him and shipped hi

f Fort Chartres. The great war chief's heart, with a gradual breaking, finally yielded bef

cannon mounted on one of the bastions would have to salute the new commandant. Sentinels on the mound of Fort Chartres could see a frosty valley, reaching to the Mississippi, glinting in the distance. That alluvial stretch was, in the course of years, to be eaten away by the river even to the bastions. The fort itself, built at such expense, would soon be abandoned by its conquerors,

, to a town recently founded northward on the west shore, where many French settlers had collected, called St. Louis. This was then

always loved the French. We have often smoked the calumet together, and we h

id to have wept and implored King Louis on his knees not to give up to the English that rich western domain which Marquette and Joll

bury the hatchet,"

said Pontiac. "I sha

ke peace with him, if he recal

e belts are more tha

f intend to go when

glo-Saxon. He would have struck out to the remotest wilderness, had he foreseen to what a burial place his continual clinging to the French would bring him. For Pontiac was assassinated by an Illinois Indian, whom an English trader had brib

the bastions. St. Ange stood up

ellerive. "That salute is the signal for the f

UNCE

ON TO AMER

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ce M.

+ 303 Pages, illu

aightforward story full of interest for young readers it tells about some of the events that make up the history of Europe from the days of Greece and Rome to the colonization of America. The wealth of pertinent illustrations adds to the interest and value of the book, and th

nto relation with the present at as many points as possible. Primitive man, Rome and Greece, the Northmen, the Church, the Crusades, medieval life in town and country,

and simplicity of treatment necessary in a history for the grammar grades. Altogether

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the present day, form the subjects of these chapters, which have been carefully edit

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important historical character. Picturesque accounts are given of dramatic events, manners of olden times, and ex

S FROM AMER

nstructor in The Browne, and Nichols School, Cambridge

ry for the fifth and sixth grades in elementary schools or for collatera

ES FROM AME

Instructor in The Browne and Nichols School, Cambridg

ins eighteen vivid narratives of dramatic events which took place during the first two hundred years in the history of our country. Each st

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AILWAY THROUGH

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y in Colgate Univer

es, with maps and il

t roads across the Appalachians, telling where they are, why they run as they do, and what their history has been. The evolution from Indian trails to modern rapid tran

aboard to the country west of the mountains, and the essential physiographic f

ridge, Mass.: Brigham's From Trail to Railway is a serviceable e

f saying things, and any one who knows the man can feel him as he reads if he cannot see him. The style is well suited to the grad

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Hero Stories from

Short Stories from

c Influences in Am

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Washington and

Autobiog

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