One of the tribes with which they have dealings is the “Rat Indians” of the Hudson Bay men, probably the Vunta´-Kŭtchin,[N72] from the fact that they visit Fort Yukon. These are the people whom Capt. Maguire met on his unsuccessful sledge journey to the eastward to communicate with Collinson. The Point Barrow people told us that “Magwa” went east to see “Colli´k-sina,” but did not see him, only saw the Itkûdlĭñ. Collinson,[N73] speaking of Maguire’s second winter at Point Barrow, says: “In attempting to prosecute the search easterly, an armed body of Indians of the Koyukun tribe were met with, and were so hostile that he was compelled to return.” Maguire himself, in his official report,[N74] speaks of meeting _four_ Indians who had followed his party for several days. He says nothing of any hostile demonstration; in fact, says they showed signs of disappointment at his having nothing to trade with them, but his Eskimo, he says, called them Koyukun, which he knew was the tribe that had so barbarously murdered Lieut. Barnard at Nulato in 1851. Moreover, each Indian had a musket, and he had only two with a party of eight men, so he thought it safer to turn back. However, he seems to have distributed among them printed “information slips,” which they immediately carried to Fort Yukon, and returning to the coast with a letter from the clerk in charge, delivered it to Capt. Collinson on board of the _Enterprise_ at Barter Island, July 18, 1854. The letter is as follows: FORT YOUCON, _June 27, 1854_. The printed slips of paper delivered by the officers of H.M.S. _Plover_ on the 25th of April, 1854, to the Rat Indians were received on the 27th of June, 1854, at the Hudson Bay Company’s establishment, Fort Youcon. The Rat Indians are in the habit of making periodical trading excursions to the Esquimaux along the coast. They are a harmless, inoffensive set of Indians, ever ready and willing to render any assistance they can to the whites. WM. LUCAS HARDISTY, _Clerk in charge_.[N75] [Footnote N72: Ibid., p. 31.] [Footnote N73: Arctic Papers, p. 119.] [Footnote N74: Further papers, etc., pp. 905 et seq.] [Footnote N75: Arctic Papers, p. 144.] Capt. Collinson evidently never dreamed of identifying this “harmless, inoffensive set of Indians” with “an armed body of Indians of the Koyukun tribe.” It is important that his statement, quoted above, should be corrected lest it serve as authority for extending the range of the Koyukun Indians[N76] to the Arctic Ocean. The Point Barrow people also know the name of the U´na-kho-tānā,[N77] or En´akotina, as they pronounce it. Their intercourse with all these Indians appears to be rather slight and purely commercial. Friendly relations existed between the Rat Indians and the “Eskimos who live somewhere near the Colville” as early as 1849,[N78] while it was still “war to the knife” between the Peel River Indians and the Kupûñmiun.[N79]