and rough, or will it be
good for corn?"

"All sugar-bush--what you want better? S'pose you want corn;
_plant_ him. S'pose you want sugar; _make_ him."

Captain Willoughby was struck with this description, and he returned to
the subject, again and again. At length, after extracting all the
information he could get from Nick, he struck a bargain with the
fellow. A surveyor was engaged, and he started for the place, under the
guidance of the Tuscarora. The result showed that Nick had not
exaggerated. The pond was found, as he had described it to be, covering
at least four hundred acres of low bottom-land; while near three
thousand acres of higher river-flat, covered with beach and maple,
spread around it for a considerable distance. The adjacent mountains
too, were arable, though bold, and promised, in time, to become a
fertile and manageable district. Calculating his distances with
judgment, the surveyor laid out his metes and bounds in such a manner
as to include the pond, all the low-land, and about three thousand
acres of hill, or mountain, making the materials for a very pretty
little "patent" of somewhat more than six thousand acres of capital
land. He then collected a few chiefs of the nearest tribe, dealt out
his rum, tobacco, blankets, wampum, and gunpowder, got twelve Indians
to make their marks on a bit of deer-skin, and returned to his employer
with a map, a field-book, and a deed, by which the Indian title was
"extinguished." The surveyor received his compensation, and set off on
a similar excursion, for a different employer, and in another
direction. Nick got his reward, too, and was well satisfied with the
transaction. This he afterwards called "sellin' beaver when he all run
away."

Furnished with the necessary means, Captain Willoughby now "sued out
his patent," as it was termed, in due form. Having some influence, the
affair was soon arranged; the grant was made by the governor in
council, a massive seal was annexed to a famous sheet of parchment, the
signatures were obtained, and "Willoughby's Patent" took its place on
the records of the colony, as well as on its maps. We are wrong as
respects the latter particular; it did not take _its_ place, on
the maps of the colony, though it took _a_ place; the location
given for many years afterwards, being some forty or fifty miles too
far west. In this peculiarity there was nothing novel, the surveys of
all new regions being liable to similar trifling mist