A coarse butcher's knife is one skin, a woollen blanket or a fathom of coarse cloth eight, and a fowling-piece fifteen.

The Indians receive their principal outfit of clothing and ammunition on credit in the autumn to be repaid by their winter hunts; the amount entrusted to each of the hunters varying with their reputations for industry and skill from twenty to one hundred and fifty skins.

The Indians are generally anxious to pay off the debt thus incurred but their good intentions are often frustrated by the arts of the rival traders.

Each of the Companies keeps men constantly employed travelling over the country during the winter to collect the furs from the different bands of hunters as fast as they are procured.

The poor Indian endeavours to behave honestly and, when he has gathered a few skins, sends notice to the post from whence he procured his supplies but, if discovered in the meantime by the opposite party, he is seldom proof against the temptation to which he is exposed.