Indians."

"Dear me, Betty, don't speak of it! It seems to me there are woods enough here now. My! What a dreary place! the undergrowth is so thick you can't see the water, and yet you can hear every wave. Betty Grannis, do you mean to tell me that you ever come out here to the old fort alone?"

"Oh, not very often; it is rather dreary, isn't it, auntie? You see, this is an old, old Indian trail, and that is why the pines meet overhead. Let's walk faster. I don't believe you'll want to stay long, auntie, after you get to the fort."

"I agree with you, Betty, this is a lonesome walk. I almost wish we'd stayed at home."

"Let's turn around and go back," suggested Billy.

"Oh, I must find some beads," Aunt Florence insisted. "Do you ever see Indians around here nowadays?"

"Oh, just tame ones," Billy was honest enough to say.

"You must be brave children," the young lady remarked, as she followed Betty through the gloomy forest.

"We're used to it," Betty sung over her shoulder, and Billy knew she was laughing. "Besides that, we can run like the wind if we have to. Then you know, auntie, the awful things that happened here happened over a hundred years ago, and there isn't any real danger now, of course. It just makes you feel shivery, that's all. Isn't it queer about Indian trails, how they wind in and out so often? This trail is exactly as it used to be. Did you ever read 'The Conspiracy of Pontiac,' auntie?"

"No, Betty, I never read it all; I simply know about the massacre here. Have you read it?"

"She knows it by heart," said Billy. "She can say bushels of Indian speeches. Tell her one, Betty. Tell her that one where the Indian said to Alexander Henry, 'The rattlesnake is our grandfather.'"

"Yes, do, Betty, only tell me first who Alexander Henry was."

"Why, auntie, don't you know? He was the English fur-trader whose life was saved by the Indian chief Wawatam. I like him best of any fur-trader I ever knew."

"Do tell me his story, Betty."

"Oh, I can't tell it, it is too long. Do you want to know what happened to him in the spring of 1761, two years before the massacre?"

"Yes, certainly."

"Well, of course, you know all about the French and Indian War, auntie?"

"Yes, I know something about it."

"Then, auntie, you know that the French liked the Indians, and the Indians liked them, but the English despised the Indians, and treated them so badly the Indians hated all Englishmen. That was why the Indians helped the French in their war. They wanted to drive the English out of the country. Well, when the war was over, the Indians didn't know that the English came out ahead, and that the French soldiers would have to march out of every fort and that the English soldiers would march in. Even my Pontiac didn't know it."

"He'd have known all about his own war and where he died if he'd had you for a sister," mocked Billy.

"Don't talk quite so loud, Billy dear," cautioned Aunt Florence.

"'Fraid?" questioned Billy.

"Oh, not exactly; go on, Betty, we're listening. How much longer is this Indian trail, anyway?"

"Only half a mile, auntie. Billy, you'll punch a hole through your pocket if you aren't careful."

"Go on with your story, Bet, and don't turn around so much."

"Well," continued Betty, giving Billy a look that meant "Don't you dare lose those beads," "well, auntie, in the spring of that year, 1761, the French soldiers had left this fort, and only Canadian families were living in it. The English soldiers hadn't come yet, but they were on the way. The fort was over a hundred years old then. Only think of it!

"Alexander Henry, my Englishman, wasn't afraid of anything, that's why I like him. He came up here with canoes full of beads and things to trade with the Indians for furs. On the way he was warned again and again to go back if he didn't want to be killed. He probably would have been killed long before he got here if he hadn't put on the clothes of a Canadian voyageur."

"They're the ones," interrupted Billy, "that used to paddle the canoes and sing 'Row, brothers, row,' and—"

"She knows that," sniffed Betty; "even our baby knows that much. Well, auntie, when Alexander Henry got here, the Canadians were bad to him and tried to scare him. They wanted him to go away before anything happened. He hadn't been here but a short time when Minnavavana, a Chippewa Indian chief, came with sixty warriors to call on him. They marched to his house single file, auntie. Their faces were painted with grease and charcoal, and they had feathers through their noses and feathers in their hair. Their bodies were painted with white clay. That isn't the worst of it. Every warrior carried a tomahawk in one hand and a scalping-knife in the other. I suppose they came along this very trail.

"Alexander Henry says they walked into the house without a sound. The chief made a sign and they all sat on the floor. Minnavavana asked one of the interpreters how long it was since Mr. Henry left Montreal, and then he said it seemed that the English were brave men and not afraid to die, or they wouldn't come as he had, alone, among their enemies. Then all the Indians smoked their pipes, and let Alexander Henry think about things while it was nice and quiet. Just think of it, auntie!

"When the Indians were through smoking, Minnavavana made a speech. I don't know it by heart, but it was something like this:

"'Englishman, it is to you that I speak. Englishman, you know that the French king promised to be our father. We promised to be his children. We have kept this promise. Englishman, it is you that have made war with our father. You are his enemy. How could you have the boldness to venture among us, his children? You know his enemies are ours.

"'Englishman, our father, the King of France, is old and infirm. Being tired of war, he has fallen asleep. But his nap is almost at an end. I think I hear him stirring and asking for his children, the Indians, and, when he does awake, what must become of you? He will destroy you utterly.'"

Betty, becoming much in earnest, was walking backward.

"'Englishman, we have no father, no friend among the white men but the King of France,'" the child went on. "'But for you, we have taken into consideration that you have ventured your life among us in the expectation that we should not molest you. You do not come to make war; you come in peace to trade with us. We shall regard you, therefore, as a brother, and you may sleep tranquilly, without fear of the Chippewas. As a token of friendship, we present you this pipe to smoke.'"

Whereupon, Betty, making a serious bow, offered her little shovel to Aunt Florence. For the moment, she actually believed herself Minnavavana, the Indian chief, though Billy's face quickly brought her back to the present.

"I am thankful to say," resumed Betty, joining in the laugh following the presentation of the shovel, "that after three hundred warriors of another tribe came and were going to make trouble, the English soldiers arrived, and the red flag of England soon floated above the fort. Then, for two years, nothing much happened, but I'm glad I wasn't here then. I wouldn't have slept a wink, I know."

"Neither should I, Betty," Aunt Florence agreed.

"Frenchy'd have been all right, though," remarked Billy. "There's