His comrade, Tranchelot, after having had his fingers burnt, was finally consumed by fire on the 8th September, 1653. Such were some of the thrilling incidents of daily occurrence at Sillery two centuries ago. What with breaches of military etiquette by M. de Maisonneuve's colonists, the ferocity of skulking Iroquois, and the scrapes their own neophytes occasionally got into, the reverend fathers in charge of the Sillery mission must now and again have had lively times, and needed, we would imagine, the patience of Job, with the devotion of martyrs, to carry out their benevolent views. We read in history [181] how, on one Sunday morning in 1652, the Sillery Indians being all at mass, a beaver skin was stolen from one of the wig- wams, on which a council of the chiefs being called, it was decided that the robbery had been committed by a Frenchman, [182] enough to justify the young men to rush out and seize two Frenchmen then accidentally passing by, and in no wise connected--as the Indians even admitted--with the theft. The Indian youths were for instantly stripping the prisoners, in order to compel the Governor of the colony to repair the injury suffered by the loss of the peltry. One of them, more thoughtful than the rest, suggested to refer the matter to the missionary father, informing him at the same time that in cases of robbery it was the Indian custom to lay hold of the first individual they met belonging to the family or nation of the suspected robber, strip him of his property, and retain it until the family or nation repaired the wrong. The father succeeded, by appealing to them as Christians, to release the prisoners. Fortunately, the real thief, who was not a Frenchman, became alarmed, and had the beaver skin restored.