Page:Barbour--Metipoms Hostage.djvu/257

Rh and he knows all paths and will guide you straightly.”

“Good. And now, that you have done wisely and bravely, to you and to Apequinash  and to Mawtamps I will make presents. I am poor, for the enemy has burned my village  and sacked my lodges, but one treasure I  still have. Give me a knife, Caleb.”

Thereupon, removing his wampum coat, Philip cut three pieces from it, each containing near a peck of wampum, and gave the  pieces to the three sagamores. The Indian Caleb observed the act frowningly and when  Philip would have returned his knife he said:  “I, too, have served, O Philip. Is there no reward for me?”

The sachem gravely picked a single wampum bead from the garment and handed it to him. “I reward according to your desertdessert [sic], O Caleb. This for your bravery in battle. It was but a few smokes since that I saw you  kill a fly.”

In the laugh that followed, Caleb angrily ground the wampum bead into the earth  with his heel.

Food was brought to the Quaboags and afterwards they smoked, but before that one  of their number, disencumbering himself of