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.