The Indians of the party were troublesome, and the principal guide, English Chief, was sulky and disobedient.

This man had insisted on being accompanied by two of his wives, of whom he was so morbidly jealous that he could scarcely bring himself to leave them for an hour in order to go hunting or to prospect the country; consequently he did little or nothing in the killing of game, and this kept the expedition on very small rations.

Mackenzie got wroth with him, and so gave him a sound rating.

This irritated English Chief to a high degree, and after a long and vehement harangue he burst into tears and loud and bitter lamentations.

Thereat his friends and wives commenced crying and wailing vociferously, though they declared that their tears were shed, not for any trouble between the white man and English Chief, but because they suddenly recollected all the friends and relations they had lost within the last few years! "I did not interrupt their grief for two hours, but as I could not well do without them, I was at length obliged to sooth it and induce the chief to change his resolution (to leave me), which he did with great apparent reluctance." Later on English Chief told Mackenzie that he feared he might have to go to war, because it was a custom amongst the Athapaskan chiefs to make war after they had given way to the disgrace attached to such a feminine weakness as shedding tears.