Some Three Hundred Years Ago | Page 3

and they voted Jacques, "The best fellow yet!" True to his pledge, the old salt presented the knife with a sweeping bow. Jacques, overjoyed, at once cut his mark on the handle, and he dreamed that night of his attack on the New World. He awoke to make plans for the Indian scalps he should take to Raoul, for Indians seemed only as beasts to be slaughtered.
Days and nights of sailing passed, as well as storms and fogs. When the sun at last brought clear horizons, the shout of "Land head!" thrilled captain, mates, and crew. No one knew just where they were, but shining peaks could be seen in the distance. At last they came to anchor, and small boats carried the men ashore. Jacques, too, was allowed to go. He clutched his knife, expecting to plunge it into the head of the first red-skin.
A group of Indians stood on the rocks. Monsieur Champlain, the first to step ashore, greeted them with friendly signs. Jacques caught sight of an Indian boy of his own size, lurking behind. He held a bow in his hand, and a quiver of arrows was slung across his back. It was Nonowit, for they had landed on the Piscataqua shores.
The Indian boy gathered wood for the fire, and Jacques eagerly joined in the search. Soon the older folk sat about the blaze. The white men tried to ask where they had landed and what was the nature of the coast. Jacques, in his desire to learn, drew in the sand for Nonowit the picture of the ship, the point of rocks, and the coast. The Indian boy understood and added the river to the map. That aroused Monsieur Champlain, who sent an order to the ship and soon received brilliant beads and various knives from the stores on board. These he laid at the feet of the Indians and pointed to the boy's map on the sand. The red men pulled charred sticks from the fire and drew on the paper offered the full coast line, so far as they knew, even to the Merrimac River with its impeding sandbars, then not even heard of by white men.
By the time the French had started for their vessel Jacques had become sure that the many stories he had heard of the fierceness of the Indians were not entirely true, for already he had found an Indian boy a good companion. Instead of thrusting his knife into his scalp, he followed the example of his leaders and laid it at Nonowit's feet. The little red-skin, pleased with his gift, instinctively offered to Jacques his bow and arrows. These the French lad safely tucked away for Raoul, now thinking it a much finer gift than many scalps.
Monsieur Champlain was even more pleased than Jacques to carry to his countrymen so true a map of the coast of the New World, though at that time he did not know it was to be the map of New England, nor that he had landed on the New Hampshire shore.

VISITORS FROM ENGLAND.
Eleven years passed and Nonowit was a grown Indian who knew the forest lands along the Piscataqua and the rocky turns of the coast. But in all this time he had not forgotten the two strange experiences of his boyhood: a sailing vessel, seen in the river, and later the meeting of white men face to face. Never did his eye run along the ocean horizon without thought of those white-winged sails.
One morning in May, 1614, Nonowit paddled miles from the shore and pulled his canoe upon the rocks of a small island, the largest of a group that could be seen from the coast. Leaving his bark in safety, he crossed to the opposite shore of the island, where he first laid sticks for a fire and then threw out his line for a fish. A full catch held his attention until the tide had risen to an unusual height. Suddenly he thought of his canoe. He hastened over the rocks to find it far afloat. There he was left alone on the island with only the fish of the ocean for food and the sky to cover his head. That day and the next he watched for a stray canoe. On the morning of the third day, as he scanned the ocean to the East, he discerned a distant white speck.
Slowly it shaped itself, and he realized that once again he was watching the approach of a white man's vessel. It seemed to be heading for his very island. Nonowit watched cautiously, ready to find safety in the rocky caves in case these proved unfriendly people.
The vessel dropped anchor and a small boat brought eight men ashore. The leader was Capt. John Smith, who had sailed from