If Resistance Be Expected They
Not Unfrequently Murder Before They Attempt To Rob.
The traders when they
travel invariably keep some men on guard to prevent surprise whilst the
others sleep; and
Often practise the stratagem of lighting a fire at
sunset, which they leave burning, and move on after dark to a more
distant encampment - yet these precautions do not always baffle the
depredators. Such is the description of men whom the traders of this
river have constantly to guard against. It must require a long residence
among them and much experience of their manners to overcome the
apprehensions their hostility and threats are calculated to excite.
Through fear of having their provisions and supplies entirely cut off the
traders are often obliged to overlook the grossest offences, even murder,
though the delinquents present themselves with unblushing effrontery
almost immediately after the fact and perhaps boast of it. They do not on
detection consider themselves under any obligation to deliver up what
they have stolen without receiving an equivalent.
STONE INDIANS.
The Stone Indians keep in amity with their neighbours the Crees from
motives of interest; and the two tribes unite in determined hostility
against the nations dwelling to the westward which are generally called
Slave Indians - a term of reproach applied by the Crees to those tribes
against whom they have waged successful wars. The Slave Indians are said
greatly to resemble the Stone Indians, being equally desperate and daring
in their acts of aggression and dishonesty towards the traders.
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