380 SIMPSON'S EXFLOEATIONS—18S6-39. 



party returned to the scene of the murders. On approaching they called" 

 out to Simpson, but received no answer. Bruce, however, could see him 

 lying in bed on the further side of the cart. " The report of a gun was 

 forthwith heard, and the whistling of a ball in the air. A remark was made 

 by one of deponent's (Bruce's) party, that said Simpson must have shot him- 

 self. This deponent, with his party, then made a circle around the cart 

 aforesaid, to ascertain whether Simpson could be seen to move. Nothing 

 was seen, however, but a dog lying beneath the cart. Said deponent, with 

 his party aforesaid, continued to call upon Simpson by name ; and receiving 

 no reply, thep fired at the said dog, and drove him away. Deponent, with 

 his party, then discharged their guns at the top of the cart, with the intention 

 of alarming Simpson, if still alive." After some time Bruce, approaching 

 nearer with one companion, went up to the cart and found that Simpson 

 had shot himself through the head. Simpson was quite dead, as also were 

 Bird and the elder Legros. The bodies of the three were interred in the 

 same grave. A trunk, carpet bag, and double-barrelled gun belonging to 

 Simpson, were brought on to " Lac qui Parle," and there left in charge of 

 Dr Williamson of that place. Bruce concludes his statement by testifying 

 that at no time had Simpson manifested symptoms of insanity, and that " he 

 acted through the whole affair like a man in the possession of his senses." 



Of the supposed murders of Bird and Legros there were only two eye- 

 witnesses — Bruce, whose narrative is given above, and the younger Legros, 

 who was never examined. Two other depositions, made respectively by 

 Eobert Logan at Red River, 14th October 1840, and James Flett, on the 

 11th October 1840, refer only to what these deponents are supposed to have 

 witnessed — the circumstances of the finding of the body — and are corrobo- 

 rative so far of Bruce's statement. No papers were found among Simpson's 

 property referring to any circumstances that could have led to this murder- 

 ous episode of prairie life. The remains of the traveller were removed to the 

 churchyard of Red River Colony, and in his grave the secret of his death 

 lies also buried. But there seem to be only two theories respecting this 

 most pitiful catastrophe. The first is that Simpson died defending his life 

 and the records of his discoveries ; and the second, and by far the more 

 likely one, is that his mind, a prey to anxiety, ambition, and to despondency 

 superinduced by neglect real or imagined, had at last become unhinged; that 

 he became the victim of hallucination and suspicion, and that, having in an 

 access of insanity killed Legros and Bird, he either died by his own hand 

 on the arrival of Bruce and his party, as already described, or was shot 

 down by them as a madman and a public enemy. 



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