know whether by accident or not. He held the short gun in his
hand at the time he was speaking to me. Hepburn afterwards
informed me that previous to the report of the gun Mr. Hood and
Michel were speaking to each other in an elevated angry tone ; that
Mr. Hood being seated at the fire-side, was hid from him by intervening
willows, but that on hearing the report he looked up and saw
Michel rising up from before the tent-door, or just behind where
Mr. Hood was seated, and then going into the tent. Thinking that
the gun had been discharged for the purpose of cleaning it, he did
not go to the fire at first; and when Michel called to him that
Mr. Hood was dead, a considerable time had elapsed. Although 1
dared not openly to evince any suspicion that I thought Michel
guilty of the deed, yet he repeatedly protested that he was incapable
of committing such an act, kept constantly on his guard, and carefully
avoided leaving Hepburn and me together. He was evidently
afraid of permitting us to converse in private, and whenever Hepburn
spoke, he inquired if he accused him of the murder. It is to
be remarked, that he understood English very imperfectly, yet
sufficiently to render it unsafe for us to speak on the subject in his
presence. We removed the body into a clump of willows behind
the tent, and, returning to the fire, read the funeral service in
addition to the evening prayers. The loss of a young officer, of such
distinguished and varied talents and application, may be felt and
duly appreciated by the eminent characters under whose command
he had served; but the calmness with which he contemplated the
probable termination of a life of uncommon promise ; ’ and the
patience and fortitude with which he sustained, I may venture to
say, unparalleled bodily sufferings, can only be known to the companions
of his distresses. Owing to the effect that the tripe de roche
invariably had, when he ventured to taste it, he undoubtedly
suffered more than any of the survivors of the party. Bickersteth’s
Scripture Help was lying open beside the body, as if it had fallen
from his hand, and it is probable, that he was reading it at the
instant of his death. We passed the night in the tent together
without rest, every one being on his guard. Next day, having
determined on going to the Fort, we began to patch and prepare
our clothes for the journey. We singed the hair off a part of the
buffalo robe that belonged to Mr. Hood, and boiled and ate it.
Michel tried to persuade me to go to the woods on the Copper-Mine
River, and hunt for deer instead of going to the Fort. In the afternoon
a flock of partridges coming near the tent, he killed several
which he shared with us.
Thick snowy weather and a head wind prevented us from starting
the following day, but on the morning of the 23d we set out,
carrying with us the remainder of the singed robe. Hepburn and
Michel had each a gun, and I carried a small pistol which Hepburn
had loaded for me. In the course of the march Michel alarmed us
much by his gestures and conduct, was constantly muttering to himself,
expressed an unwillingness to go to the Fort, and tried to
persuade me to go to the southward to the woods, where he said he
could maintain himself all the winter by killing deer. In consequence
of this behaviour, and the expression of his countenance, I
requested him to leave us, and to go to the southward by himself.
This proposal increased his ill-nature, he threw out some obscure
hints of freeing himself from all restraint on the morrow; and I
overheard him muttering threats against Hepburn, whom he openly
accused of having told stories against him. He also, for the first
time, assumed such a tone of superiority in addressing me, as evinced
that he considered us to be completely in his power, and he gave
vent to several expressions of hatred towards the white people, or as
he termed us in the idiom of the voyagers, the French, some of
whom, he said, had killed and eaten his uncle and two of his. relations.
In short, taking every circumstance of his conduct into
consideration, I came to the conclusion that he would attempt to
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