Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/153

Rh When the ice had disappeared and melted away under the rays of the spring sun, the Indians once more frequented the Fort, and on their inquiring for the trader, the murderer told them the plausible story, that his master had started with his family on a dog train, while the ice was still on the lake, to pay them a visit at their sugar camps. And as he had never arrived amongst them, all naturally supposed that he had broken through the bad ice, and drowned with his family. The Ojibways faithfully hunted the shores of the island and adjacent main land, for the remains of their lost trader, but as may be supposed, they searched in vain.

In the course of the spring a light canoe arrived from Montreal by way of Grand Portage, containing one of the factors of the fur company, to whom belonged the post.

At first the plausible tale of the murderer was credited, but marks of blood having been discovered on the walls of the room where the trader's wife had been murdered, and his evident confusion on being asked the cause of them, led immediately to suspicion, and he was from that time arrested and confined.

Shortly after this, the factor, while walking around the precincts of the fort, endeavoring to discover further traces of the murder, happened to push his sword cane into the pile of rubbish where the murderer had buried the bodies of his unfortunate victims, and the stench on the end of his cane led to a complete discovery. The bodies were immediately disinterred in presence of the guilty wretch, who now confessed his crime.

The fort was evacuated, and the cannon and iron works were thrown into the adjacent pond, which having a deep and miry bottom, they have never been discovered by the Indians, who often afterwards searched for them. The site of this old post is still plainly discernible from small mounds of stone and rubbish which once formed the chimneys of the