In a state of frenzy he had shot
two of his four companions. The other two returned to the main body, and
got assistance. He was seen to be alive as they approached him, a shot
was heard, and then shots were fired in his direction by those observing
him. Whether he committed suicide or was killed by those approaching,
some of whom were French, will never be known. The fact that he had
quarreled with the French half-breeds, five years before this event, was
used to throw suspicion. The body of Simpson was carried back to St.
John's Cemetery in Winnipeg, and it is said was buried along the wall in
token of the belief that he had committed suicide.
What the body of the people had feared in the tightening of the legal
restrictions by the new laws and new officials, did actually take place.
The French half-breeds were, as we have seen, chiefly given to hunting.
In theory, the Hudson's Bay Company possessed _all hunting rights under
their charter_. A French-Canadian, Larant, and another half-breed also,
had the furs, which they had hunted for, forcibly taken from them by
legal authority, while in a third case an offender against the game laws
had been actually deported to York Factory.
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