try. There is hardly any bound to the mischief these roysterers at
Weymouth have set on foot."

"And Massasoit no longer our friend, since we refused to send him poor
Squanto's head," said Bradford meditatively.

"Yes," laughed the captain. "'T is food for mirth, were a man dying, to
see Squanto skulk at our heels like a dog who sees a lion in the path.
He hardly dares step outside the palisado, for fear some envoy of
Massasoit's shall pounce upon him."

"'T is a good lesson to teach him discretion," said Winslow. "Certes he
stirred up strife between us and the sachem with his cock-and-bull
stories."

"Especially when he sent his squaw to warn us that Canonicus with
Massasoit and Corbitant were on the way from Namasket to devour us."

"Ay, no wonder Massasoit was aggrieved at being so slandered, and could
he have got Tisquantum once within his clutches 't would have gone hard
with the poor fool. But never burnt child dreaded fire as he now doth
the outside of the palisado."

"Didst hear, Winslow, that t' other day when some of us were unearthing
a keg of powder buried there in the Fort, Squanto and a savage guest of
his clomb the hill to see what was going on? The magazine is passably
deep as you know, and Squanto himself had never seen it opened; so when
they saw Alden hand up the keg to Hopkins, the guest asked in the Indian
tongue what was in it, and Squanto told him 't was the plague which just
before our coming swept the land, and that the white men had captured it
and buried it here upon the hill to let loose upon their enemies; and in
the end the knave got a goodly price from his visitor for assurance that
the plague should not be liberated till he had time to reach Sandwich."

All three men laughed, but Bradford said,--"I fear me Squanto hath done
us no little harm with his double dealings, his jealousy of Hobomok, and
his craving for bribes; but withal he hath been so good a friend to us,
more than useful at the first when we knew naught of the place or how to
live, or plant, or fish, that I thought right to risk even Massasoit's
enmity rather than to give our poor knave up to his wrath."

"And then I never can forget," said Winslow, "that Squanto as only
survivor of the Patuxets was in some sort lord of the soil whereon we
pitched."

"Yes truly," responded the captain with a short laugh. "Like myself he
was born to great estates and sees them enjoyed by others."

"Well then, since nothing is imminen