Muskingum, who had now forgotten Frederick Post. The Senecas on the upper Allegheny heard the news. The Ottawas and Wyandots on both sides of the Detroit River heard it—and before the fires of each of these fierce French-loving Indian nations there was much silence while chieftains pondered, and the few words uttered were stern and cruel.
Cruel words grew to angry threats. By what right, the chieftains asked, could the French surrender the Black Forest to the English? When did the French come to own the land, after all? They were the guests, the friends of the Indian—not his conquerors. The French built forts, it is true, but they were for the Indian as well as for the French, and were forts in name only, and the more of them the merrier! But now a conqueror had come, telling the Indian the land was no longer his, but belonged to the British king.
Threats soon grew into visible form. Where it started is not surely known—some say from the Senecas on the upper Allegheny—but soon a fearful Bloody Belt went on a journey with its terrible sum-
