164 HISTORY OF FORT LIGONIER On June 26, Ecuyer wrote Colonel Bouquet: "We are so crowded in the fort that I fear disease; for, in spite of every care, I cannot keep the place as clean as I should like. Besides, the small-pox is among us; and I have therefore caused a hospital to be built under the drawbridge, out of range of musket shot.' Such was the situation at Fort ritt in the opening days of the Pontiac and Guyasuta War. On June 1, the trader, Thomas Calhoun, arrived at Fort Pitt from the Tuscarawas with the information that King Beaver, Shingas, Wingenund and several other Delaware chiefs had come to his trading house on the Tuscarawas at eleven o'clock on the night of May 27, told him of the murder of a number of Eng- lish traders, and warned him to leave at once. Said these Delaware chiefs to Calhoun: "Out of regard to you and the friendship that formerly subsisted between our grandfathers and the English, we request you may think of nothing you have here, but make the best of your way to some place of safety, as we should not desire to see you killed in our town. Be careful to avoid the road and every place where Indians resort." These chiefs then sent three Indians to conduct Cal- houn and his men, fourteen in all, to Fort Pitt. On May 29, as they were crossing Beaver Creek, they were fired upon by Indians, and all were killed except Cal- houn and two others. He reported to Captain Ecuyer that, when the firing began, the Indian guides immedi- ately disappeared, which caused him to believe that they had purposely led him and his party into an ambush. Upon Calhoun's leaving Tuscarawas, or King Beaver's Town, he and his men were not permitted to take their guns with them, Shingas and King Beaver telling them that the three Indian guides would conduct them through the wilderness in safety. The leader of the