Of the unhappy father of Owindia but little remains to be told. He wandered about the woods for some time after his merciless deed; having neither gun, nor ax, nor fish-net, he was utterly unable to provide himself food. When reduced to the very last extremity of weakness and starvation, he yet contrived to fasten a few boards together and make himself a raft: on this he paddled across the Mackenzie, and appeared one morning at Fort Simpson, such a miserable object that some of the Indians fled at the sight of him. He was put under arrest by the Hudson's Bay Company's officer in charge, who is also a magistrate; and an indictment was made out against him. He was committed for trial and sent out by the Hudson's Bay Company's fur boat in the course of the summer to Prince Albert, some 1800 miles distant, where the nearest Courts of Justice are held.
But the whole business of Michel's committal was a farce. The Indians are as yet too ignorant and uncivilized to understand the nature of an oath, and even if they did so, there is not one man among them now living who could be brought to bear witness against one of his own race and tribe. When last Michel was heard of, he was under nominal restraint, but conducting himself with propriety, and professing utter unconsciousness of the wild acts of his past life.
C. S. B.