Page:Nye's History of the USA.djvu/52

48 but they put a price upon it which has made the Indian ever since a comparatively poor man.

Half of this devoted band died before spring, and yet the idea of returning to England did not occur to them. "No," they exclaimed, "we will not go back to London until we can go first-class, if we have to stay here two hundred years."

During the winter they discovered why the lands had been sold to them so low. The Indians of one tribe had died there of a pestilence the year before, and so when the Pilgrims began to talk trade they did not haggle over prices.

In the early spring, however, they were surprised to hear the word "Welcome" proceeding from the door-mat of Samoset, an Indian whose chief was named Massasoit. A treaty was then made for fifty years, Massasoit taking "the same."

Canonicus once sent to Governor Bradford a bundle of arrows tied up in a rattlesnake's skin. The Governor put them away in the pantry with his other curios, and sent Canonicus a few bright new bullets and a little dose of powder. That closed the correspondence. In those days there were no newspapers, and most of the fighting was done without a guarantee or side bets.

Money-matters, however, were rather panicky at the time, and the people were kept busy digging clams to sustain life in order to raise Indian corn enough to give them sufficient strength to