ason, we did not receive meat this year from more than six or
seven persons of either the Hare Indians or Dog-Rib tribes, after the
ice set in; this happened, probably, from our being now unprovided with
goods to exchange for their furs; though they had been expressly told in
the spring, that we should have abundance of ammunition, tobacco, and
other supplies, to purchase all the meat they would bring.

By the return of our men from Fort Norman, we learned that one of our
Dog-Rib hunters had murdered a man of his tribe, in the autumn, near
the mouth of the Bear Lake River. The culprit being at the house, we
inquired into the truth of the report, which was found correct; and he
was in consequence instantly discharged from our service. His victim had
been a man of notoriously loose habits, and in this instance had carried
off the hunter's wife and child, while he was in pursuit of deer, at a
great distance from the Fort. The husband pursued the guilty pair the
moment he discovered their flight, and, on overtaking them, instantly
shot the seducer; but the woman escaped a similar fate, by having the
presence of mind to turn aside the muzzle of the gun when in the act of
being discharged. She did not, however, escape punishment: her husband
struck her senseless to the ground with the stock of his gun, and would
have completed her destruction, but for the cries and intreaties of
their only child. This transaction adds another to the melancholy list
of about thirty murders which have been perpetrated on the borders of
this lake since 1799, when the first trading post was established.

The Dog-Rib Indians, being derived from the same stock with the
Chipewyans, have many traditions and opinions in common with that
people. I requested Mr. Dease to obtain answers from the old men of the
tribe to a few queries which I drew up, and the following is the
substance of the information he procured, which may be compared with the
more extended statements by Hearne and Mackenzie, of the general belief
of the Chipewyans.

The _first man_, they said, was, according to the tradition of their
fathers, named Chapewee. He found the world well stocked with food, and
he created children, to whom he gave two kinds of fruit, the black and
the white, but forbade them to eat the black. Having thus issued his
commands for the guidance of his family, he took leave of them for a
time, and made a long excursion for the purpose of conducting the sun to
t