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"I have engaged between forty and fifty Indians from the frontiers of your province to go over the mountains with me," writes Braddock to Governor Morris, "and shall take Croghan and Montour into service." Croghan was, in effect, put in command of the Indians, and a warrant given to him of captain. For a time all went well.
Washington was empowered to raise a company of like force at Alexandria; to procure and forward munitions and supplies for the projected fort at the Fork, and ultimately to have command of both companies. When on the frontier he was to take council of George Croghan and Andrew Montour the interpreter, in all matters relating to the Indians, they being esteemed perfect oracles in that department.
She laughed wickedly. "I don't mean their ladies, cousin." "How could you?" I protested, grimly. "Their wagons," she said, "started to-day at sundown from Tribes Hill; Sir John, the Butlers, and the Glencoe gentlemen follow at dawn. There are post-chaises for the ladies out yonder, and an escort, too. But nobody would stop them; they're as safe as Catrine Montour."
George Croghan, the envoy from Pennsylvania, with Montour his interpreter, had passed through Logstown a week previously, on his way to the Twightwees and other tribes, on the Miami branch of the Ohio. Scarce any one was to be seen about the village but some of Croghan's rough people, whom he had left behind "reprobate Indian traders," as Gist terms them.
"Croghan," he says, "is a mere idol among his countrymen, the Irish traders;" yet they met amicably, and the Pennsylvanian had with him a companion, Andrew Montour, the interpreter, who proved of great service to Gist. As Montour was a conspicuous person in his time, and a type of his class, he merits a passing notice. He was the reputed grandson of a French governor and an Indian squaw.
He found an assemblage of the western tribes, feasting and rejoicing, and firing of guns, for George Croghan and Montour the interpreter were there, and had been distributing presents on behalf of the Governor of Pennsylvania. Joncaire was said to have the wit of a Frenchman, and the eloquence of an Iroquois.
His half-breed mother, Catharine Montour, was a native of Canada, whence she was carried off by the Iroquois, and adopted by them. She lived in a village at the head of Seneca Lake, and still held the belief, inculcated by the guides of her youth, that Christ was a Frenchman crucified by the English.
The two did not yet know it, but they were looking upon Catharine Montour, daughter of a French Governor General of Canada and an Indian woman, a chieftainess of the Iroquois, and of a memory infamous forever on the border, where she was known as "Queen Esther." Shif'less Sol shuddered again, and whispered to Henry: "I didn't think such women ever lived, even among the Indians."
For there appeared to be a Montour in every bit of devil's work we ever heard of and it seemed as though there was no end to their number. One, praise God, had been slain before Wyoming which some said enraged the Witch, his mother, to the fearsome deeds she did there and one was this man's sister, Lyn Montour a sleek, lithe girl of the forest, beautiful and depraved.
Catrine Montour, slavering and gasping, leaned against the painted war-post. Into the fire-ring came dancing a dozen girls, all strung with brilliant wampum, their bodies and limbs painted vermilion, sleeveless robes of wild iris hanging to their knees. With a shout they chanted: "O False-Faces, prepare to do honor to the truth!