Saugunash be informed of the plan which had been formed to take possession of the fort.
In this manner did he guard with equal foresight and greater success than Pontiac himself, against a premature development of their plans. Had not the loving Indian girl informed the young officer at Fort Detroit of Pontiac's secret plan, that important post, and its inmates, would have shared the same fate as befell the fort at Mackinaw.
Of all the northern tribes who occupied the great lakes, the Ojibways allowed only the Osaugees to participate with them in their secret councils, in which was developed the plan of taking the fort, and these two tribes only were actively engaged in this enterprise.
The fighting men of the Ojibways and Osaugees gradually collected in the vicinity of the fort as the day appointed for the attack approached. They numbered between four and six hundred. An active trade was in the mean time carried on with the British traders, and every means resorted to for the purpose of totally blinding the suspicions which the more humane class of the French population found means to impart to the officers of the fort, respecting the secret animosity of the Indians. These hints were entirely disregarded by Major Etherington, the commandant of the fort, and he even threatened to confine any person who would have the future audacity to whisper these tales of danger into his ears. Everything, therefore, favored the scheme which the Ojibway chieftain had laid to ensnare his confident enemies. On the eve of the great English king's birthday, he informed the British commandant that as the morrow was to be a day of rejoicing, his young men would play the game of ball, or Baug-ah-ud-o-way, for the amusement of the whites, in front of the gate of the fort. In this game the young men of the Osaugee tribe would play against the Ojibways for a large stake. The com-
