Squanto was of great help to the Pilgrims.  He showed them how to catch eels, where to go fishing, when to plant their corn, and how to put a fish in every hill to make it grow fast.

After a while he came to live with the Pilgrims.  He liked them so much that when the poor fellow died he begged Governor Bradford to pray that he might go to the white man’s heaven.

70.  Canonicus[11] dares Governor Bradford to fight; the palisade; the fort and meeting-house.—­West of where Massasoit lived, there were some Indians on the shore of Narragansett Bay,[12] in what is now Rhode Island.  Their chief was named Canonicus, and he was no friend to Massasoit or to the Pilgrims.  Canonicus thought he could frighten the white men away, so he sent a bundle of sharp, new arrows, tied round with a rattlesnake skin, to Governor Bradford:  that meant that he dared the governor and his men to come out and fight.  Governor Bradford threw away the arrows, and then filled the snake-skin up to the mouth with powder and ball.  This was sent back to Canonicus.  When he saw it, he was afraid to touch it, for he knew that Myles Standish’s bullets would whistle louder and cut deeper than his Indian arrows.

[Illustration:  ARROWS BOUND WITH SNAKE-SKIN.]

But though the Pilgrims did not believe that Canonicus would attack them, they thought it best to build a very high, strong fence, called a palisade, round the town.

[Illustration:  THE PALISADE BUILT ROUND PLYMOUTH.]

They also built a log fort on one of the hills, and used the lower part of the fort for a church.  Every Sunday all the people, with Captain Standish at the head, marched to their meeting-house, where a man stood on guard outside.  Each Pilgrim carried his gun, and set it down near him.  With one ear he listened sharply to the preacher; with the other he listened just as sharply for the cry, Indians!  Indians!  But the Indians never came.

[Footnote 11:  Canonicus (Ka-non’i-kus).]

[Footnote 12:  Narragansett (Nar’a-gan’set):  see map, paragraph 84.]

71.  The new settlers; trouble with the Indians in their neighborhood; Captain Standish’s fight with the savages.—­By and by more emigrants came from England and settled about twenty-five miles north of Plymouth, at what is now called Weymouth.  The Indians in that neighborhood did not like these new settlers, and they made up their minds to come upon them suddenly and murder them.

Governor Bradford sent Captain Standish with a few men, to see how great the danger was.  He found the Indians very bold.  One of them came up to him, whetting a long knife.  He held it up, to show how sharp it was, and then patting it, he said, “By and by, it shall eat, but not speak.”  Presently another Indian came up.  He was a big fellow, much larger and stronger than Standish.  He, too, had a long knife, as keen as a razor.  “Ah,” said he to Standish, “so this is the mighty captain the white men have sent to destroy us!  He is a little man; let him go and work with the women."[13]