He had been told that peace had been declared between the French and the English, but he had not believed. Now he was told again, by word direct, that the king of France and the king of England had signed peace papers; the country was English, his father the king of France could not help him. He must stop his war, and "take the English by the hand."
Weeks before this, the Indians to the south had withdrawn; his other allies were fading into the forest. So, sullen and disappointed, he, too, withdrew. His sun had set, but he tried to follow it southwestward.
Before he gave his hand to the English he did attempt another war. The tribes of the Illinois hesitated, in council.
"If you do not join my people," thundered Pontiac, "I will consume you as the fire eats the dry grass of the prairies!"
The plot failed, but the Illinois did not forget his insulting words. In April, 1769, while leaving a council with the Illinois beside the Mississippi River, and wearing a blue-and-silver uniform coat given to him years before by the brave General Montcalm of the French, he was murdered by a Kaskaskia of the Illinois nation, in the forest which became East St. Louis.
The Kaskaskia had been bribed by an English trader, with a barrel of whiskey, to do the deed. There died Pontiac. He was buried, it is said, on the site of the present Southern Hotel in St. Louis City.
The Illinois suffered from this foul crime. All of Pontiac's loyal people—the Ottawas, the Potawatomis, the Sacs, the Foxes, the Chippewas—rose against them and swept them from the face of the earth.
Now what of Catharine, who saved Detroit from Pontiac? She saved Detroit, but Fort Detroit did not save her. Pontiac was no fool; he very quickly had suspected her. He well knew that Major Gladwyn was her friend, and that she had taken the moccasins in to him.
She was seized by the chief, beaten almost lifeless with a lacrosse racquet, and condemned to the meanest of labor. After the siege, Major Gladwyn made no effort to rescue her or reward her. At last, when an old and miserable woman, she fell into a kettle of boiling maple sap, and died.