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.
These parties go to war almost every summer and sometimes muster three or four hundred horsemen on each side.

Their leaders, in approaching the foe, exercise all the caution of the most skilful generals; and whenever either party considers that it has gained the best ground, or finds it can surprise the other, the attack is made.