lame and an angry smile upon his lips, sprang
ashore and hurried his men out of the boat.

"Now glad am I to see you, Master Conant," cried Bridges, already
waiting upon the beach, and hastening toward him he said in a lower
voice. "Our captain hath got on his fighting cap, and thrown discretion
to the winds. 'T will be an ill day for Plymouth if her men are led on
to kill Englishmen fishing with the king's license."

"Ay indeed will it. Bide a bit till I can parley with both thy captain
and Hewes, who is not an ill fellow if one handleth him gingerly."

"Gingerly goeth not smoothly with peppery, and 't is but half the truth
to call our captain that," said Bridges with a dry smile, as Conant
passed him to reach Standish who was marshaling his men upon the sands.

Too long it were to detail the arguments of the man of peace, the
delicate manipulation of the tempers of both parties, the concessions
wrung from the one side and the other, until after several hours' debate
Standish moodily said,--

"Well Conant, sith you put it so, sith you make it out that by enforcing
the colony's right I do but attack the colony's life, I yield, for I am
sworn defender and champion of Plymouth and her prosperity, and never
shall it be said that Myles Standish preferred his own quarrel to the
well-being of those he had sworn to protect. To leave yon fellow
unscathed for his insolence, sits like a blister on a raw wound, but go
and make what terms you can with him. I suppose you require not that I
abandon the colony's property altogether to him."

"Nay, nay, Captain, but I am thinking that my comrades and I, with some
of the Little James' men and Master Hewes' company, should clap to and
run up another staging in a few hours either for the new-comers or the
Plymouth men"--

"For Plymouth if you would pleasure me. I would not my men should take
the leavings of yon rabble at any price," interrupted Standish
haughtily.

"So be it, and if Hewes with his men will do their best, and Master
Bridges and you will send your crew to help, we also will labor in the
common cause until each party shall have a staging of its own, and the
bond of Christian charity need not be broken."

"That same bond will be all the safer if I may get away from here with
as small delay as may be," retorted Standish.

"And that too shall be," replied Conant cheerfully. "For I fain would
speak with the Master of the Anne before she sails, and I'll e'en take
our