He surrendered without a
blow.
[Illustration: Beaver Coin of Hudson's Bay Company, melted from Old Tea
Chests, one Coin representing one Beaver.]
The furs were quickly transferred to the French ships, and the soldiers
were turned loose to loot the fort. The Indians fled, among them Moses
Norton's gentle daughter, now in her twenty-second year. She could not
revert to the loathsome habits of savage life; she dared not go to the
fort filled with lawless foreign soldiers; and she perished of
starvation outside the walls. Matonabbee had been absent when the
French came. He returned to find the fort where he had spent his life
in ruins. The English whom he thought invincible were defeated and
prisoners of war. Hearne, whom the dauntless old chief had led through
untold perils, was a captive. Matonabbee's proud spirit was broken.
The grief was greater than he could bear. All that living stood for
had been lost. Drawing off from observation, Matonabbee blew his
brains out.
[1] I have purposely avoided bringing up the dispute as to a mistake of
some few degrees made by Hearne in his calculations--the point really
being finical.
[2] I am sorry to say that in pioneer border warfares I have heard of
white men acting in a precisely similar beastly manner after some
brutal conflict. To be frank, I know of one case in the early days of
Minnesota fur trade, where the irate fur trader killed and devoured his
weak companion, not from famine, but sheer frenzy of brutalized
passion.
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