e French settlements, and having no disposition
to imbrue his hands any farther in the blood of innocent men whose
conduct had only won his regard, he was extremely anxious to return to
the bay of St. Louis.

Finding that Duhaut had altered his plan and had decided to continue on
the Mississippi, he took one or two of his companions aside and deeply
impressed them with a sense of the danger they would thus encounter.
They conspired to kill Duhaut and his most resolute supporter Liotot.

Hiens then entered into a secret alliance with the savages, promising
that if they would aid him in his plans, he would stop the march of the
party toward the Mississippi, and with several others would join them,
with their all-powerful muskets, in a hostile expedition they were
about to make against a neighboring tribe. He also enlisted, in
co-operation with his plans, the French deserters who had already
become savages.

Thus strengthened, and with twenty-two well-armed savages in his train,
he sought Duhaut. In brief words he thus addressed him:

"You have decided to go on to the French settlements. It is a danger
which we dare not encounter. I therefore demand that you divide with us
all the arms, ammunition, and goods we have. You may then pursue your
own course and we will pursue ours."

Without waiting for any reply he drew a pistol and shot Duhaut through
the heart. The miserable man staggered back a few steps and dropped
dead. At the same moment one of his accomplices, Ruter, with his
musket, shot down Liotot, inflicting a mortal wound. As the man was
struggling in death's agonies, Ruter advanced and discharged a
pistol-shot into the convulsed body. Douay writes, "His hair, and then
his shirt and clothes took fire, and wrapped him in flames, and in this
torment he expired." It was the intention of Hiens also to kill
Larcheveque, but he, terror-stricken, escaped by flight.

A small hole was dug, and the two dead bodies were thrown in and
covered up. M. Joutel was present, and witnessed this dreadful scene.
He writes:

"Those murders took place before my eyes. I was dreadfully
agitated, and supposing that my death was immediately to follow,
instinctively seized my musket in self-defence. But Hiens cried
out:

"'You have nothing to fear. We do not wish to harm you. We only
avenge the death of our patron La Salle. Could I have prevented his
death I certainly should have done so.'"

The savages