CHAPTER IX.

THE MASSACRE- THE GAME OF BALL-SLAUGHTER OF THE GARRISON INDIANS DRINKING THE BLOOD OF ENGLISHMEN HAIRBREADTH ESCAPE OF AN ENGLISH TRADER.

ON THE following morning, the fourth of June, many Ojibwas came to the fort, inviting officers and soldiers to come out and see a grand game of ball, which was to be played between their nation and the Sacs. In a few moments the fort was half deserted. The gates were left wide open, and the soldiers were collected in groups under the shadow of the palisades watching the Indians play ball. They were all without arms, suspecting nothing. The game in which the Indians were engaged was called baggattaway. "At either extremity of the ground, a tall post was planted, marking the stations of the rival parties. The object of each was to defend its own post, and drive the ball to that of its adversary. Hundreds of lithe and agile figures were leaping and bounding upon the plain. Each was nearly naked, his loose black hair flying in the wind, and each bore in his hand a bat of a form peculiar to this game. At one moment the whole were crowded together, a dense throng of combantants, all struggling for the ball; at the next they were scattered again, and running over the ground like hounds in full cry." The participants yelled and shouted at the tops of their voices. Suddenly the ball soared high from the midst of the multitude, and fell near the pickets of the fort. "This was no chance stroke. It was part of a preconcerted stratagem to insure the surprise and destruction of the garrison. As if in pursuit of the ball, the players rushed towards the gate of the fort, and yelling the war-whoop, they snatched the hatchets which the squaws had concealed under their blankets. Some of the Indians sprang upon the

spectators without, while others rushed into the fort, and, in a moment all was carnage and confusion. At the commencement, Etherington and Leslie were seized and led away from the scene of massacre."

Mr. Alexander Henry, from whom I have just quoted, gives the following account of the massacre and his adventures in connection with it: "I did not go myself to see the match which was now to be played without the fort, because there being a canoe prepared to depart on the following day for Montrea, I employed myself in writing letters to my friends; and, even when a fellow-trader, Mr. Tracy, happened to call upon me saying, that another canoe had just arrived from Detroit, and proposing that I should go with him to the beach, it so happened that I still remained to finish my letters, promising to follow Mr. Tracy in the course of a few minutes. Mr. Tracy had not gone more than twenty paces from my door, when I heard an Indian war cry, and a noise of general confusion. Going instantly to my window, I saw a crowd of Indians within the fort furiously cutting down and scalping every Englishman they found; in particular, I witnessed the fate of Lieut. Jamette. I had in the room in which I was, a fowling piece loaded with swan shot. This I immediately seized and held it for a few minutes waiting to hear the drum beat to arins. In this dreadful interval, I saw several of my countrymen fall, and more than one struggling between the knees of an Indian who, holding him in this manner, scalped him while yet living. At length disappointed in the hope of seeing resistance made to the enemy, and sensible, of course, that no effort of my own unassisted arm could avail against four hundred Indians, I thought only of seeking shelter amid the slaughter which was raging. I observed many of the Canadian inhabitants of the fort calmly looking on, neither opposing the Indians nor suffering injury, and from this circumstance I conceived a hope of finding security in their houses. Between the yard door of my own house, and that of Mr. Langlade, my next neighbor, there was only a low fence, over which I easily climbed. At my entrance I found the whole family at the windows, gazing at the scene of blood

before them. I addressed myself immediately to Mr. Langlade, begging that he would put me into some place of safety until the heat of the affair should be over, an act of charity by which he might, perhaps, preserve me from the general massacre. But while I uttered my petition, Mr. Langlade, who had looked for a moment at me, turned again to the window, shrugging his shoulders and intimating that he could do nothing for me. This was a moment of despair, but the next a Pani woman, a slave of Mr. Langlade's, beckoned me to follow her. She brought me to a door, which she opened, desiring me to enter, and telling me it led to the garret where I must go and conceal myself. I joyfully obeyed her directions, and she, having followed me up to the garret door, locked it after me, and with great presence of mind took away the key. This shelter obtained, if shelter I could hope to find it, I was naturally anxious to know what might still be passing without Through an aperture which afforded me a view of the area of the fort, I beheld, in shapes, the foulest and most terrible, the ferocious triumphs of barbarian conquerors. The dead were scalped and mangled. The dying were writhing and shrieking under the insatiate knife and tomahawk, and, from the bodies of some, ripped open, their butchers were drinking the blood, scooped up in the hollow of joined hands, and quaffed amid shouts of rage and victory. I was shaken, not only with horror, but with fear. The suffering which I witnessed, I seemed on the point of experiencing. No long time elapsed before every one being destroyed who could be found, there was a general cry of all is finished. At the same instant I heard some of the Indians enter the house where I was.

The garret was separated from the room below, only by a layer of single boards, at once the flooring of the one and the ceiling of the other. I could, therefore, hear everything that passed, and the Indians no sooner came in than they inquired whether or not any Englishmen were in the house. Mr. Langlade replied that he could not say. He did not know of any, answers in which he did not exceed the truth, for the Pani woman had not only hidden me by stealth, but kept my secret and her own. Mr. Langlade was, therefore, I presume, as far from a wish to

destroy me, as he was careless about saving me, when he added to these answers, that they might examine for themselves, and would soon be satisfied as to the object of their question. Saying this he brought them to the garret door. The state of my mind will be imagined. Arrived at the door, some delay was occasioned by the absence of the key, and a few moments were thus allowed me, in which to look around for a hiding place. In one corner of the garret was a heap of those vessels of birch bark, used in maple sugar making. The door was unlocked and opened, and the Indians, ascending the stairs before I had completly crept into a small opening, which presented itself at one end of the heap. An instant after four Indians entered the room, all armed with tomahawks, and all besmeared with blood upon every part of their bodies. The die appeared to be cast. I could scarcely breathe, but I thought the throbbing of my heart occasioned noise loud enough to betray me. The Indians walked in every direction about the garret, and one of them approached me so closely that at a particular moment, had he put forth his hand he must have touched me. Still I remained undiscovered, a circumstance to which the dark color of my clothes, and the want of light in the room which had no window in the corner in which I was, must have contributed. In a word, after taking several turns in the room, during which they told Mr. Langlade how many they had killed, and how many scalps they had taken, they returned down stairs, and I, with sensations not to be expressed, heard the door, which was the barrier between me and my fate, locked for the second time. There was a feather-bed on the floor, and, on this, exhausted as I was, by the agitation of my mind, I threw myself down and went to sleep. In this state I remained till the dusk of the evening, when I was awakened by the second opening of the door. The person that now entered was Mr. Langlade's wife, who was much surprised at finding me, but advised me not to be uneasy, observing that the Indians had killed most of the English, but that she hoped I might, myself, escape. A shower of rain having begun to fall, she had come to stop a hole in the roof. On her going away, I begged her to send me a little water to drink, which

she did. As night was now advancing, I continued to lie on the bed, ruminating on my condition, but unable to discover a resource from which I could hope for life. A flight to Detroit had no probable chance of success. The distance from Michilimackinac was four hundred miles, and I was without provisions, and the whole length of the road lay through Indian countries-countries of an enemy in arms, where the first man whom I should meet would kill me. To stay where I was threatened nearly the same issue. As before, fatigue of mind, and not tranquility, suspended my cares and procured me further sleep. The respite which sleep afforded me during the night was put an end to by the return of morning. I was again on the rack of apprehension. At sunrise I heard the family stirring, and presently after, Indian voices, informing Mr. Langlade that they had not found my hapless self among the dead, and they supposed me to be somewhere concealed. Mr. Langlade appeared, from what followed, to be, by this time, acquainted with my place of retreat, of which, no doubt, he had been informed by his wife. The poor woman, as soon as the Indians mentioned me, declared to her husband in the French tongue, that he should no longer keep me in his house, but deliver me up to my pursuers, giving as a reason for this measure that should the Indians discover his instrumentality in my concealment, they might revenge it on her children, and, that it was better that I should die than they. Mr. Langlade resisted at first, this sentence of his wife, but soon suffered her to prevail, informing the Indians that he had been told that I was in his house; that I had come there without his knowledge, and that he would put me into their hands. This was no sooner expressed than he began to ascend the stairs, the Indians following upon his heels. I now resigned myself to the fate with which I was menaced; and regarding every effort at concealment as vain, I arose from the bed, and presented myself full in view to the Indians, who were entering the room. They were all in a state of intoxication, and entirely naked, except about the middle. One of them named Wenniway, whom I had previously known, and who was upwards of six feet in height, had his entire face and body covered with