ball-play ruse. On the following' morning (9th of May) he sought entrance to the fort for himself and all his warriors, but was refused such a carte blanche, though offered a personal admittance. Seeing his designs thus detected, he forgot dissimulation, and with a savage expression on his face, turned and left, while his warriors, yelling like fiends, took immediate revenge by massacring the few English settlers who lived near the fort and its vicinity. Pontiac, however, had no hand in this, as he had crossed the river in a canoe to the Ottawa village, where he gave vent to his threats of vengeance.
A general attack now ensued, and the inmates of the chain of forts had a sleepless time, and a terrible fate in view; but "Britons, you know," said a letter from Detroit, "never shrink. We always appeared gay to spite the rascals."
Passing over the rout of Lieut. Cuyler's detachment, and the capture of Forts Sandusky, St. Joseph, Ouatanon, Miami, Presqu' Isle, and the posts of Le Bœuf and Venago, Niagara not having been attacked, and Pittsburgh having been saved by Col. Bradstreet, let us take up the thread of our narrative at
