Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/422

412 Le Mere, La Fortune, and Maçons. A league from the Sault, Du Luth and party left the canoe, and through the woods walked to the mission house to prevent the guilty one from escaping, and soon arrested him, and placed him under a guard of six Frenchmen.

Peré, the expert voyageur, who is supposed to have been the same person who discovered that the river Perray, a tributary of Lake Nepigon, was a good route to Hudson's Bay, was sent to Keweenaw to capture the other murderers. During his absence Du Luth held councils with the Ojibways and told them that they must separate the guilty from the innocent or the whole nation would suffer. They accused Achiganaga and his sons, but believed that Peré would never be able to take them.

At ten o'clock of the night of the 24th of November Peré came through the forest, and said that he had arrested Achiganaga and four of his sons, all of whom were not guilty, and that Folle Avoine already at the Sault was the most guilty. Peré found at Keweenaw eighteen Frenchmen who had passed the winter of 1682 at that point.

Peré had left his prisoners in charge of twelve Frenchmen, at a place four leagues from the post, and at dawn of the 25th, with four more men he went back, and by two o'clock in the afternoon returned with the captives, who were placed under guard in a room in Du Luth's house.

On the 26th a council was held, and each prisoner was allowed two of his relatives to defend his interests. Each of the accused was questioned, and his answers written, and afterwards read to him, and inquiry made whether they were correct.