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 provision and supplies entirely cut off, the traders are often obliged to overlook the grossest offences, even murder, though{28} the delinquents present themselves with unblushing effrontery{29} 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.
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.