ASTOR ENCOUNTERS NEW OPPONENTS 47 



The affair had gone beyond MacKenzie s control. Seiz 

 ing cannon and ammunition, the traders crossed the 

 prairie to the abandoned fort of the Rocky Mountain 

 trappers, where the murderers were intrenched. All 

 valuables were removed from the fort. Time was given 

 for the family to prepare for death. Then the guns 

 were turned on the house. Suddenly that old harpy of 

 crime, the mother, rushed out, holding forward the In 

 dian pipe of peace and begging for mercy. 



She got all the mercy that she had ever given, and 

 fell shot through the heart. 



At last the return firing ceased. Who would enter 

 and learn if the Deschamps were all dead? Treachery 

 was feared. The assailants set fire to the fort. In the 

 light of the flames one man was espied crouching in the 

 bastion. A trader rushed forward exultant to shoot 

 the last of the Deschamps; but a shot from the bastion 

 sent him leaping five feet into the air to fall back dead, 

 and a yell of fiendish victory burst from the burning 

 tower.* 



Again the assailants fired a volley. No answering 

 shot came from the fort. Rushing through the smoke 

 the traders found Francois Deschamps backed up in 

 a corner like a beast at bay, one wrist broken and all 

 ammunition gone. A dozen rifle-shots cracked sharp. 

 The fellow fell and his body was thrown into the 

 flames. The old mother was buried without shroud 

 or coffin in the clay bank of the river. A young boy 

 mortally wounded was carried from the ruins to die 

 in Union. 



* Larpenteur, who was there, has given even a more circum 

 stantial account of this terrible tragedy. 



