It is said that the wily chieftain found out in some manner that the Ojibway maiden, Catharine, disclosed the plot to Gladwyn, and ordered four Indians to take her and bring her before him. The order was promptly obeyed, according to the diary of a Canadian who was contemporary, and having arrived at the Pottawatomie village, they seized Catharine "and obliged her to march before them, uttering cries of joy in the manner they do when they hold a victim in their clutches on whom they are going to exercise their cruelty; they made her enter the fort, and took her before the commandant (Gladwyn), as if to confront her with him, and asked him if it was not from her he had learned their design; but they were no better satisfied than if they had kept themselves quiet. They obtained from that officer bread and beer for themselves and for her. They then led her to their chief (Pontiac) in the village." It will be remembered that before the girl imparted her secret, which was destined to save the lives of all in the fort, Gladwyn solemnly promised that she should not be betrayed, but rather protected should it become necessary. And now the exigency has arisen; Catharine and her captors are in the fort. But when did a white man ever keep his sacred word to an Indian? Gladwyn did not betray her, it is true, for he made no answer to the questions asked him. But he afforded her only such protection in this, her hour of peril, "as the wolf shows to the lamb, or the kite to the dove." He gave beer to the four Indians, who were already angry, to enrage them still more, and also supplied Catharine with beer, which may have been the starting point of her ruin, as we shall see. But he did not lift a finger to save or protect the one to whom he probably owed his life, but permitted her to be dragged from the fort into the presence of the enraged Pontiac, who, according to another Canadian tradition, seized a bat or racket used by the Indians in their ballgame, and flogged her until life was almost extinct. An old Indian told Henry Conner, formerly United States interpreter at Detroit, that Catharine survived her terrible punishment and lived for many years; but having contracted intemperate habits, she fell, when intoxicated, into a kettle of boiling maple sap, and was so severely scalded that she died in consequence. {Illustration: Major Campbell in Conference with Pontiac.} Pontiac proceeded to redistribute his forces. One band hid in ambush along the river below the fort. Others surrounded the fort on the land side. The garrison had only three weeks' provisions, and the Indians determined that this scanty store should not be replenished. Every house in Detroit was searched for grease, tallow, or whatever would serve for food, and all the provisions were placed in a public storehouse.