ton with
a sneer, while Edward Dotey and Edward Lister, nominally servants to
Stephen Hopkins, but already ruffling with the best, tittered and nudged
each other as they followed their betters out of the house.

Now Dame Nature in compounding a leader does not often omit to furnish
him with five extra-keen senses, as well as a certain sixth sense
called intuition, quickwittedness, or, if you please, instinct; and
Standish, born for a leader, was fully furnished forth with all six of
these videttes, and seldom failed to see, hear, and understand all that
went on in his vicinity. So did he now, and although his stern visage
showed no shadow of change, he inwardly made the comment,--

"Hopkins's varlets, eh? Like master, like man. And Billington--wait a
bit, Master Poacher!"

"Ah, here is our friend Samoset coming up the hill, and another with
him," remarked Bradford as the little group of authorities paused at the
head of the path leading to the spring and to Watson's Hill.

"Tisquantum, I'll be bound. He looks to have a certain veneer of
civilization over his savagery," remarked Winslow, and in another minute
the two savages arrived within speaking distance, and the stranger
tapping his breast grandiloquently exclaimed,--

"This is Tisquantum, friend of Englishmen."

"Tisquantum is welcome, and so is Samoset," replied Carver gravely.
"Have they brought furs to truck for the white men's goods?"

But hereupon Squanto, as Tisquantum (He-who-is-angry) was familiarly
designated, began a long and very flowery harangue, from which the
Pilgrims gathered that the present was more of a diplomatic and
international affair than a trading expedition, and that Massasoit, the
sachem or chief of all this region, had come in royal progress, attended
by his brother Quadequina and sixty chosen warriors, to greet the white
men, and to settle upon what terms he would admit them to his territory.

So soon as the importance of this embassage was made plain, the Pilgrims
prepared to meet the occasion with suitable formalities, and while
Samoset and Squanto refreshed themselves in Stephen Hopkins's house,
Standish hastened to put his entire command under arms, excepting the
elder, who constituted the reserved force only to be called out in great
emergencies. The military band, composed of four of the well-grown lads
of the colony, Giles Hopkins, Bartholomew Allerton, John Crakstone, and
John Cooke, was also called out and equipped with i