Verbal or physical confrontation?

Aunt Mandy Charnley reported that according to what her father, Old Pierre had told her, "Bee came at Slumach with an axe." Aunt Mandy’s remarks about an axe-wielding Bee and Slumach acting in self-defence do not match testimony at the trial, that suggest that the murder was triggered by a few words by Bee.

An axe-wielding Bee would have suffered a frontal shot, and not one "at the shoulder, going down through the heart and lung", which was described by Doctor Walker, who performed the autopsy on Bee’s body. The results of the autopsy are consistent with witness Charlie Seymour’s testimony that Bee was sitting down in the canoe when Slumach, standing on the shore, shot him.

This was not the first time that Bee and Slumach confronted each other and that axe-wielding may have been part of an earlier incident. Also the reported finding of Bee’s axe in Slumach’s cabin may have to do something with an earlier encounter.