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.
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