treacherous marshes crossed, and numerous streams bridged or forded.  But by the middle of October Bouquet had led his army, without the loss of a man, into the heart of the Muskingum valley, and pitched his camp near an Indian village named Tuscarawa, from which the inhabitants had fled at his approach.  The Delawares and Shawnees were terrified:  the victor of Edge Hill was among them with an army strong enough to crush to atoms any war-party they could muster.  They sent deputies to Bouquet.  These at first assumed a haughty mien; but Bouquet sternly rebuked them and ordered them to meet him at the forks of the Muskingum, forty miles distant to the south-west, and to bring in all their prisoners.  By the beginning of November the troops were at the appointed place, where they encamped.  Bouquet then sent messengers to all the tribes telling them to bring thither all the captives without delay.  Every white man, woman, and child in their hands, French or British, must be delivered up.  After some hesitation the Indians made haste to obey.  About two hundred captives were brought, and chiefs were left as hostages for the safe delivery of others still in the hands of distant tribes.  So far Bouquet had been stern and unbending; he had reminded the Indians of their murder of settlers and of their black treachery regarding the garrisons, and hinted that except for the kindness of their British father they would be utterly destroyed.  He now unbent and offered them a generous treaty, which was to be drawn up and arranged later by Sir William Johnson.  Bouquet then retraced his steps to Fort Pitt, and arrived there on November 28 with his long train of released captives.  He had won a victory over the Indians greater than his triumph at Edge Hill, and all the greater in that it was achieved without striking a blow.

There was still, however, important work to be done before any guarantee of permanent peace in the hinterland was possible.  On the eastern bank of the Mississippi, within the country ceded to England by the Treaty of Paris, was an important settlement over which the French flag still flew, and to which no British troops or traders had penetrated.  It was a hotbed of conspiracy.  Even while Bouquet was making peace with the tribes between the Ohio and Lake Erie, Pontiac and his agents were trying to make trouble for the British among the Indians of the Mississippi.

French settlement on the Mississippi began at the village of Kaskaskia, eighty-four miles north of the mouth of the Ohio.  Six miles still farther north was Fort Chartres, a strongly built stone fort capable of accommodating three hundred men.  From here, at some distance from the river, ran a road to Cahokia, a village situated nearly opposite the site of the present city of St Louis.  The intervening country was settled by prosperous traders and planters who, including their four hundred negro slaves, numbered not less than two thousand.  But when it was learned that all the territory east of the great river had been ceded to Britain, the settlers began to migrate to the opposite bank.  The French here were hostile to the incoming British, and feared lest they might now lose the profitable trade with New Orleans.  It was this region that Gage was determined to occupy.