and taken to Detroit. Their lives, however, were spared;
and early in July, when the Wyandots made with Gladwyn
the peace which they afterwards broke, Christie and a
number of his men were the first prisoners given up.

A few miles inland, south of Presqu'isle, on the trade-route
leading to Fort Pitt, was a rude blockhouse known as Le
Boeuf. This post was at the end of the portage from Lake
Erie, on Alleghany Creek, where the canoe navigation of
the Ohio valley began. Here were stationed Ensign George
Price and thirteen men. On June 18 a band of Indians
arrived before Le Boeuf and attacked it with muskets and
fire-arrows. The building was soon in flames. As the
walls smoked and crackled the savages danced in wild glee
before the gate, intending to shoot down the defenders
as they came out. But there was a window at the rear of
the blockhouse, through which the garrison escaped to
the neighbouring forest. When night fell the party became
separated. Some of them reached Fort Venango two days
later, only to find it in ruins. Price and seven men
laboriously toiled through the forest to Fort Pitt, where
they arrived on June 26. Ultimately, all save two of the
garrison of Fort Le Boeuf reached safety.

The circumstances attending the destruction of Fort
Venango on June 20 are but vaguely known. This fort,
situated near the site of the present city of Franklin,
had long been a centre of Indian trade. In the days o
the French occupation it was known as Fort Machault.
After the French abandoned the place in the summer of