The hunters, though few in number, had gathered a fine lot of furs, and, when the ice was breaking up in the streams, the sugar maples were tapped. Their implements for this purpose were crude. Their method consisted in cutting a gash through the bark with a tomahawk and into this driving a chip which served as a "spile" to conduct the dripping sap into the dishes of elm bark, from which it was taken and boiled into sugar. This sugar was often mixed with bear's fat and stored in sacks made of skins, a mixture much prized by the Indians. A little later the tribe returned to the bluff where Rodney was first introduced to its life, there to plant the corn and tobacco. Rumours of trouble with the whites increased. The latter part of May Francois returned, but without Maman and Louis, and he brought, to trade for the valuable furs, rifles and ammunition and brandy, and waxed rich, while the savages with their new implements of war became more restless. CHAPTER XIII THE BEGINNING OF WAR From the history of those days one learns that there were white savages who compared unfavourably with the red ones. Of such were those border ruffians who, tempting the family of a friendly Indian with liquor till they were stupefied with drink, murdered them. The Indian chief returned to find them weltering in blood. He was an Iroquois who had moved his family from New York to the Ohio River. His Indian name was Tahgahjute, but he was commonly called Logan from the fact that he had in early life lived with a white family of that name. Ever after he had been a staunch friend of the whites. Now he became almost insane in his natural anger, and went about among the various tribes calling on them to avenge his wrongs. Had those border ruffians desired to bring on an Indian war they could not have so quickly done it in any other way. Soon, tales of pioneer families murdered by the Indians were brought over the mountains into Virginia. Logan's friends were seeking vengeance. Undoubtedly the war would have broken out later had not Logan's family been murdered. The Indians believed they must fight or be overrun by the white immigrants pouring into the western country. The royal governor appointed by the king over the colony of Virginia was, at this time, Lord Dunmore. He was an ardent loyalist, but he also is said to have been interested financially in some of the land ventures, concerning which there was much interest in the colony, also much speculation. Though Governor Dunmore knew that the policy of the English ministry at the time was conciliatory, he did not hesitate to prepare for a war which should bring the savages to submission.