At the Stikine (or Stickeen) River--a place much in the world's eye during the past year or two--Sir George found young John McLaughlin, a son of the big doctor, in charge of the company's post, with a force of twenty-two men. The governor next proceeded to Sitka, and, after a somewhat protracted side trip to California and the Sandwich Islands, returned in the Spring of '42 to Stikine on board the company's ship, the _Cowlitz_, in tow of a Russian steamer loaned him by Governor Etholine of Sitka--to find that young McLaughlin had just been murdered by his own men, who were in a state of mingled mutiny and intoxication within the fort, while about 2000 Indians were gathered without, in readiness to take advantage of the insurrection within! The opportune arrival of Sir George, with two ships' crews at his disposal, enabled him to speedily quell the disturbance and disperse the Indians, after preparing their minds for a measure which the company was anxious here as elsewhere to enforce--the discontinuance of the liquor traffic. It may here be remarked that the one good result of this most unhappy tragedy at the Stikine was the agreement arrived at soon after with the Russian company--whose bad example had been held to necessitate the British company's fighting "firewater" with "firewater" at competitive trading posts--under which agreement both companies inaugurated a prohibitory liquor law on this coast. Doubts as to his powers and the best policy to pursue led Sir George to take the man who fired the fatal shot with him to Sitka, whither he was returning _en route_ to Siberia and Europe. For a less comprehensible reason he sent another man--a supposed participant in the affair--to Fort Vancouver, accompanied by a letter to Dr. McLaughlin, apprising him of the tragedy and casting some blame upon the murdered son for the insurrection. The letter the big doctor had, of course, no alternate but to receive, but the man he would not see nor so much as suffer to set foot on shore at Fort Vancouver--but had him kept a prisoner on board the _Cadboro_. On a trip of that vessel to Vancouver Island, this man saw Mr. Douglas and at once made a confession to him, implicating all the people at Stikine in a plot to murder John the younger. He even stated that an agreement to that effect had been drawn up by the man who was acting as a temporary assistant or clerk to the murdered man. The confession absolved the young trader from the charge of drunkenness and contradicted the depositions taken by Sir George in every material point. Little wonder is it that the doctor, smarting under the blow received, was not satisfied with the apparently easy methods pursued by Sir George, with whom he had moreover recently exchanged some angry words in California on matters of business; nor that he sent an officer of the company to Mr. Manson, with a complete new complement of men, to the Stikine to re-open the investigation--with no known retributive