On the 29th, as they were crouching round a miserable fire, they were surprised to hear voices in the next room. Their first thought was that the Indians had at last come to their rescue. A moment later Richardson and Hepburn entered. The arrival of these friends brought some fresh hope to the starving men at Fort Enterprise, for Hepburn was stronger than the rest, and there was every prospect that he would be able to find them some means of subsistence. But the sight of those two men standing there alone sent a chill to Franklin’s heart. What, he asked, had become of Hood and Credit and Michel and Vaillant? The answer which he received on the following day was more terrible than his worst fears had led him to anticipate. Briefly put, Richardson’s story ran thus. On the morning of October 9, that is to say, two days after Franklin had started off for Fort Enterprise, Michel, the Iroquois, returned to the encampment alone, with the news that Belanger, with whom he had started, had left him on the way. There was every reason to suspect, however, both from the story that he told them, and from his subsequent behaviour, that he had made away with the Canadian, and that he had invented this tale to conceal the horrible sequel to his crime. From this time onward his conduct became more and more suspicious. He grew sullen and morose, he refused to go hunting, or, if he went, he would only go by himself, taking his hatchet with him, unlike a hunter, who only makes use of his knife when he kills deer. “This fact,” says Richardson, “seems to indicate that he took it for the purpose of cutting up something that he knew to be frozen.” At last, by a culminating act, he confirmed the suspicions which had already come to birth in the minds of Richardson and Hepburn, for, on Sunday, October 20, when left alone with Hood, he deliberately shot his companion through the head. In their weak condition it was, of course, impossible for either the doctor or the sailor to wreak summary vengeance upon the murderer, although self-preservation demanded it. Accordingly, they buried Michel’s victim, and on the 23rd this party of three—for none of the others had succeeded in reaching the camp—decided to set out for the Fort. It now became so painfully evident that the Iroquois intended his two companions to share the fate of his former victims, that there was only one course open to them. Accordingly, Richardson seized on an opportunity when Michel was not expecting an attack, to shoot him through the head with a pistol.