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286 they, being light, would take a smoke, and soon catch up with them.

Mons. Cadotte, perfectly unsuspicious, followed the wishes of the chief, and at the head of his men, he was leading off, when his interpreter, Rasle, approached and remarked to him, that he suspected treachery. He had noticed in the morning when they started to leave the camp, that all the men but those who accompanied them, had disappeared, and also that they had been holding secret councils in different lodges during the whole night. Rasle further intimated that the heavy clump of trees through which they were about to pass, being the only spot on the route adapted to an ambuscade, he suspected that men, who had so early made their disappearance from the camp, had been sent ahead to here lay in wait and surprise them, while the chief, with his pretended guard, would attack in the rear, as his present movement and request for them to go ahead plainly indicated. The truth of these suspicions flashed through Cadotte's mind, and being of an impulsive nature, he instantly ordered his men to throw down their packs, and prepare for instant action. Then suddenly approaching the chief, who was now quietly smoking his pipe, he cocked his gun, and presented it to his breast, telling Rasle to say to him, that "he saw through his treachery, and that he would be the first to suffer death, unless he ordered his warriors to give up their arms, and also cleared the path he was travelling, of the men whom he had sent ahead to waylay him."

The chief at first stoutly denied the charge, but when he saw Cadotte's men forcibly take the arms out of the hands of his chosen warriors, whom they outnumbered, he burst into tears, and begged for his life, and the lives of his men. This being assured in case the ambuscade amongst the trees ahead would disperse, the chief sent one of his disarmed warriors thither, and a few moments after,