CHAPTER XXXI. 



1766-1769. 

 DEATH OF PONTIAC. 



The winter passed quietly away. iVlready the 

 Indians began to feel the blessings of returning 

 peace in the partial reopeuing of the fur-trade ; 

 and the famine and nakedness, the misery and 

 death, which through the previous season had 

 been rife in their encampments, were exchanged 

 for comparative comfort and abundance. With 

 many precautions, and in meagre allowances, the 

 traders had been permitted to throw their goods 

 into the Indian markets ; and the starving hunters 

 were no longer left, as many of them had been, to 

 gain precarious sustenance by the bow, the arrow, 

 and the lance — the half-forgotten weapons of their 

 fathers. Some troubles arose along the frontiers 

 of Pennsylvania and Virginia. The reckless bor- 

 derers, in contempt of common humanity and pru- 

 dence, murdered several straggling Indians, and 

 enraged others by abuse and insult ; but these 

 outrages could not obliterate the remembrance of 

 recent chastisement, and, for the present at least, 

 the injured warriors forbore to draw down the 

 fresh vengeance of their destroyers. 



