The English traveler Jonathan Carver, who visited the post five
years afterwards, relates that an Ottawa girl with whom Major
Gladwyn had formed an attachment betrayed the plot. Though this
story is of doubtful authenticity, there is no doubt that, in one
way or another, the commandant was amply warned that treachery
was in the air. The sounds of revelry from the Indian camps, the
furtive glances of the redskins lounging about the settlement,
the very tension of the atmosphere, would have been enough to put
an experienced Indian fighter on his guard.
Accordingly when, on the fated morning, Pontiac and sixty
redskins, carrying under long blankets their shortened muskets,
appeared before the fort and asked admission, they were taken
aback to find the whole garrison under arms. On their way from
the gate to the council house they were obliged to march
literally between rows of glittering steel. Well might even
Pontiac falter. With uneasy glances, the party crowded into the
council room, where Gladwyn and his officers sat waiting. "Why,"
asked the chieftain stolidly, "do I see so many of my father's
young men standing in the street with their guns?" "To keep them
in training," was the laconic reply.
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