In the morning we again urged Michel to go a-hunting that he might if possible leave us some provision, tomorrow being the day appointed for his quitting us, but he showed great unwillingness to go out and lingered about the fire under the pretence of cleaning his gun. After we had read the morning service I went about noon to gather some tripe de roche, leaving Mr. Hood sitting before the tent at the fireside arguing with Michel; Hepburn was employed cutting down a tree at a short distance from the tent, being desirous of accumulating a quantity of firewood before he left us. A short time after I went out I heard the report of a gun, and about ten minutes afterwards Hepburn called to me in a voice of great alarm to come directly. When I arrived I found poor Hood lying lifeless at the fireside, a ball having apparently entered his forehead. I was at first horror-struck with the idea that in a fit of despondency he had hurried himself into the presence of his Almighty Judge by an act of his own hand, but the conduct of Michel soon gave rise to other thoughts, and excited suspicions which were confirmed when, upon examining the body, I discovered that the shot had entered the back part of the head and passed out at the forehead, and that the muzzle of the gun had been applied so close as to set fire to the night-cap behind. The gun, which was of the longest kind supplied to the Indians, could not have been placed in a position to inflict such a wound except by a second person. Upon inquiring of Michel how it happened he replied that Mr. Hood had sent him into the tent for the short gun and that during his absence the long gun had gone off, he did not 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 fireside, 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 I 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, everyone 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 23rd 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 his 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 destroy us on the first opportunity that offered, and that he had hitherto abstained from doing so from his ignorance of his way to the fort, but that he would never suffer us to go thither in company with him. In the course of the day he had several times remarked that we were pursuing the same course that Mr. Franklin was doing when he left him and that, by keeping towards the setting sun, he could find his way himself. Hepburn and I were not in a condition to resist even an open attack, nor could we by any device escape from him. Our united strength was far inferior to his and, beside his gun, he was armed with two pistols, an Indian bayonet, and a knife. In the afternoon, coming to a rock on which there was some tripe de roche, he halted and said he would gather it whilst we went on and that he would soon overtake us. Hepburn and I were now left together for the first time since Mr. Hood’s death, and he acquainted me with several material circumstances which he had observed of Michel’s behaviour and which confirmed me in the opinion that there was no safety for us except in his death, and he offered to be the instrument of it. I determined however, as I was thoroughly convinced of the necessity of such a dreadful act, to take the whole responsibility upon myself and, immediately upon Michel’s coming up, I put an end to his life by shooting him through the head with a pistol. Had my own life alone been threatened I would not have purchased it by such a measure, but I considered myself as entrusted also with the protection of Hepburn’s, a man who, by his humane attentions and devotedness, had so endeared himself to me that I felt more anxiety for his safety than for my own. Michel had gathered no tripe de roche, and it was evident to us that he had halted for the purpose of putting his gun in order with the intention of attacking us, perhaps whilst we were in the act of encamping.
I have dwelt in the preceding part of the narrative upon many circumstances of Michel’s conduct, not for the purpose of aggravating his crime, but to put the reader in possession of the reasons that influenced me in depriving a fellow-creature of life. Up to the period of his return to the tent his conduct had been good and respectful to the officers, and in a conversation between Captain Franklin, Mr. Hood, and myself, at Obstruction Rapid, it had been proposed to give him a reward upon our arrival at a post. His principles however, unsupported by a belief in the divine truths of Christianity, were unable to withstand the pressure of severe distress. His countrymen, the Iroquois, are generally Christians, but he was totally uninstructed and ignorant of the duties inculcated by Christianity, and from his long residence in the Indian country seems to have imbibed or retained the rules of conduct which the southern Indians prescribe to themselves.
On the two following days we had mild but thick snowy weather and, as the view was too limited to enable us to preserve a straight course, we remained encamped amongst a few willows and dwarf pines about five miles from the tent. We found a species of cornicularia, a kind of lichen that was good to eat when moistened and toasted over the fire, and we had a good many pieces of singed buffalo hide remaining.
On the 26th, the weather being clear and extremely cold, we resumed our march which was very painful from the depth of the snow, particularly on the margins of the small lakes that lay in our route. We frequently sunk under the load of our blankets and were obliged to assist each other in getting up. After walking about three miles and a half however we were cheered by the sight of a large herd of reindeer and Hepburn went in pursuit of them but, his hand being unsteady through weakness, he missed. He was so exhausted by this fruitless attempt that we were obliged to encamp upon the spot although it was a very unfavourable one.
Next day we had fine and clear but cold weather. We set out early and, in crossing a hill, found a considerable quantity of tripe de roche. About noon we fell upon Little Marten Lake, having walked about two miles. The sight of a place that we knew inspired us with fresh vigour and, there being comparatively little snow on the ice, we advanced at a pace to which we had lately been unaccustomed. In the afternoon we crossed a recent track of a wolverine which, from a parallel mark in the snow, appeared to have been dragging something. Hepburn traced it and upon the borders of the lake found the spine of a deer that it had dropped. It was clean picked and at least one season old, but we extracted the spinal marrow from it which, even in its frozen state, was so acrid as to excoriate the lips. We encamped within sight of the Dog-Rib Rock and from the coldness of the night and the want of fuel rested very ill.
On the 28th we rose at daybreak, but from the want of the small fire that we usually made in the mornings to warm our fingers, a very long time was spent in making up our bundles. This task fell to Hepburn’s share as I suffered so much from the cold as to be unable to take my hands out of my mittens. We kept a straight course for the Dog-Rib Rock but, owing to the depth of the snow in the valleys we had to cross, did not reach it until late in the afternoon. We would have encamped but did not like to pass a second night without fire and, though scarcely able to drag our limbs after us, we pushed on to a clump of pines about a mile to the southward of the rock and arrived at them in the dusk of the evening. During the last few hundred yards of our march our track lay over some large stones amongst which I fell down upwards of twenty times, and became at length so exhausted that I was unable to stand. If Hepburn had not exerted himself far beyond his strength and speedily made the encampment and kindled a fire, I must have perished on the spot. This night we had plenty of dry wood.
On the 29th we had clear and fine weather. We set out at sunrise and hurried on in our anxiety to reach the house, but our progress was much impeded by the great depth of the snow in the valleys. Although every spot of ground over which we travelled today had been repeatedly trodden by us yet we got bewildered in a small lake. We took it for Marten Lake, which was three times its size, and fancied that we saw the rapids and the grounds about the fort, although they were still far distant. Our disappointment when this illusion was dispelled by our reaching the end of the lake so operated on our feeble minds as to exhaust our strength, and we decided upon encamping but, upon ascending a small eminence to look for a clump of wood, we caught a glimpse of the Big Stone, a well-known rock upon the summit of a hill opposite to the fort, and determined upon proceeding. In the evening we saw several large herds of reindeer but Hepburn, who used to be considered a good marksman, was now unable to hold the gun straight and although he got near them all his efforts proved fruitless. In passing through a small clump of pines we saw a flock of partridges, and he succeeded in killing one after firing several shots. We came in sight of the fort at dusk and it is impossible to describe our sensations when, on attaining the eminence that overlooks it, we beheld the smoke issuing from one of the chimneys. From not having met with any footsteps in the snow as we drew nigh our once cheerful residence we had been agitated by many melancholy forebodings. Upon entering the now desolate building we had the satisfaction of embracing Captain Franklin, but no words can convey an idea of the filth and wretchedness that met our eyes on looking around. Our own misery had stolen upon us by degrees and we were accustomed to the contemplation of each other’s emaciated figures, but the ghastly countenances, dilated eyeballs, and sepulchral voices of Captain Franklin and those with him were more than we could at first bear.
CONCLUSION OF DR. RICHARDSON’S NARRATIVE.
The morning of the 31st was very cold, the wind being strong from the north. Hepburn went again in quest of deer and the Doctor endeavoured to kill some partridges, both were unsuccessful. A large herd of deer passed close to the house, the Doctor fired once at them but was unable to pursue them. Adam was easier this day and left his bed. Peltier and Samandré were much weaker and could not assist in the labours of the day. Both complained of soreness in the throat and Samandré suffered much from cramps in his fingers. The Doctor and Hepburn began this day to cut the wood and also brought it to the house. Being too weak to aid in these laborious tasks I was employed in searching for bones and cooking and attending to our more weakly companions.