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Updated: June 18, 2025
Suddenly, this supposed Indian rose, and threw his arms around Joutel's neck, making himself known, at the same time, as one of the Frenchmen who had deserted from La Salle, and taken refuge among the Cenis. He was a Breton sailor named Ruter. His companion, named Grollet, also a sailor, had been afraid to come to the village, lest he should meet La Salle.
Tonty, Memoire, MS. Tonty derived his information from some of those present. Douay and Joutel have each left an account of this murder. Almost at the same instant, Ruter fired his gun at Liotot, shot three balls into his body, and stretched him on the ground mortally wounded. Douay and the two Caveliers stood in extreme terror, thinking that their turn was to come next.
At the same moment one of his accomplices, Ruter, with his musket, shot down Liotot, inflicting a mortal wound. As the man was struggling in death's agonies, Ruter advanced and discharged a pistol-shot into the convulsed body. Douay writes, "His hair, and then his shirt and clothes took fire, and wrapped him in flames, and in this torment he expired."
He informed M. Joutel that he had a comrade by the name of Ruter, who did not dare to come with him, from fear that he should be punished by La Salle, of whose death they had not heard. "They had," writes M. Joutel, "in so short a time so entirely contracted the habits of the savages, as to become thorough savages themselves.
On a morning early in May, he appeared at Duhaut's camp, with Ruter and Grollet, the French savages, and about twenty Indians. Duhaut and Liotot, it is said, were passing the time by practising with bows and arrows in front of their hut. One of them called to Hiens, "Good-morning;" but the buccaneer returned a sullen answer.
Their joy, however, was short; for Ruter, the French savage, to whom Joutel had betrayed his intention, when inquiring the way to the Mississippi, told it to Duhaut, who, on this, changed front, and made the ominous declaration that he and his men would also go to Canada.
Liotot lived long enough to make his confession, after which Ruter killed him by exploding a pistol loaded with a blank charge of powder against his head. Duhaut's myrmidon, l'Archeveque, was absent, hunting, and Hiens was for killing him on his return; but the two priests and Joutel succeeded in dissuading him.
Ruter expressed surprise and regret when he heard of the death of his late commander. He had deserted him but a few months before. That brief interval had sufficed to transform him into a savage; and both he and his companion found their present reckless and ungoverned way of life greatly to their liking.
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