On Drummond Island, at the head of Lake Huron, was situated the most westerly military station maintained by the government of Upper Canada. Here Lord Selkirk halted and allowed his company to go on in advance into the straits of St Mary. At the military post at Drummond Island he was furnished with the promised escort of six men under a {112} non-commissioned officer of the 37th regiment. On July 22 he was present at a council held on the island by the Indian authorities stationed there. One of the principal figures at this council was Katawabetay, chief of the Chippewas, from Sand Lake. On being questioned, Katawabetay told of his refusal the year before to join the Nor'westers in an attack on the Red River Colony; he also declared that an attempt had been made during the previous spring by a trader named Grant to have some of his young Chippewas waylay Lord Selkirk's messenger, Laguimonière, near Fond du Lac. Grant had offered Katawabetay two kegs of rum and some tobacco, but the bribe was refused. The Ottawa Indians, not the Chippewas, had waylaid the messenger. This trader Grant had told Katawabetay that he was going to the Red River 'to fight the settlers.'[1] Lord Selkirk put a question to Katawabetay. 'Are the Indians about the Red River, or that part of the country you come from,' asked the earl through an interpreter, 'pleased {113} or displeased at the people settling at the Red River?' 'At the commencement of the settlement at Red River, some of the Indians did not like it,' answered the chief, 'but at present they are all glad of its being settled.' Meanwhile the party which had gone on in advance had entered the St Mary's river, connecting Lakes Huron and Superior, had crossed the half-mile portage of the Sault Rapids, and had pitched their camp some distance farther up-stream. Before the end of July Lord Selkirk was again among them. He gave the order to advance, and the boats were launched. But, only a few miles out from Sault Ste Marie, there suddenly appeared two canoes, in one of which was Miles Macdonell. For the first time Lord Selkirk now learned of the disaster which had befallen the colony in the month of June. Macdonell had gone as far as the mouth of the Winnipeg before he learned the news. Now he was able to tell Lord Selkirk of the massacre of Semple and his men, of the eviction of the settlers, and of the forcible detention of those sent by M'Leod to the Nor'westers' trading-post at Fort William.