f the long-dead Canonicus, had advised him to stay out of
the war.

"Massachusetts," said Roger Williams, "can raise thousands of men at
this moment; and if you kill them, the king of England will supply
their place as fast as they fall."

"It is well," replied Canonchet. "Let them come. We are ready for
them. But as for you, Brother Williams, you are a good man; you have
been kind to us many years. We shall burn the English in their houses,
but not a hair of your head shall be touched."

The colonies did not wait for Canonchet to surrender the King Philip
people. The treaty had been signed on October 28, and on November 2 an
army from Connecticut, Massachusetts and Plymouth was ordered out, to
march against the Narragansetts, and seize King Philip and Queen
Wetamoo, and punish Canonchet.

It was known that Queen Wetamoo was with Canonchet, but not certainly
that King Philip had "kenneled" there. At any rate, down marched the
English, their Mohegan and Pequot allies, all piloted by one Peter who
might have been the husband of Wetamoo herself, but who probably was a
Narragansett traitor.

Canonchet stood firm. To his notion, he was not obliged to surrender
anybody, while the English held his brother and three other
Narragansetts. Besides--"Deliver the Indians of Philip? No! Not the
paring of a Wampanoag's nail!"

On the afternoon of December 19, this year 1675, the bold English and
their allies struck the great fortified village at Sunke-Squaw. Out
from the heat and smudge of the blazing wigwams fled Philip and Wetamoo
and Canonchet, with their shrieking people, into the wintry swamp where
the snowy branches of the cedars and hemlocks were their only refuge.
Canonchet had lost a third of his nation; large numbers surrendered to
the English; but, like his friend Philip, with his warriors who
remained true he carried the war to the English themselves. And a
terrible war it was.

In March Captain William Peirse was sent out with seventy stout men to
march from Plymouth and head off the raging Narragansetts. Plymouth
had heard that the haughty young sachem Canonchet was on his way to
Plymouth, at the van of three hundred warriors.

Captain Peirse made his will and marched southward, to the Pawtucket
River not far above Providence. Canonchet's spies had marked him, and
Canonchet was ready.

On March 26, which was a Sunday, Captain Peirse saw upon the other side
of the river a party of Indians limping