He was seen to be alive as they approached him, a shot was heard, and then shots were fired in his direction by those observing him.

Whether he committed suicide or was killed by those approaching, some of whom were French, will never be known.

The fact that he had quarreled with the French half-breeds, five years before this event, was used to throw suspicion.

The body of Simpson was carried back to St.
John's Cemetery in Winnipeg, and it is said was buried along the wall in token of the belief that he had committed suicide.
What the body of the people had feared in the tightening of the legal restrictions by the new laws and new officials, did actually take place.
The French half-breeds were, as we have seen, chiefly given to hunting.
In theory, the Hudson's Bay Company possessed _all hunting rights under their charter_.

A French-Canadian, Larant, and another half-breed also, had the furs, which they had hunted for, forcibly taken from them by legal authority, while in a third case an offender against the game laws had been actually deported to York Factory.