more often he ran across them on the river or in the forest. Always they were friendly. One or two he counted as friends; Monapikot, a Pegan youth of near his own age who dwelt at Natick, and Mattatanopet, or Joe Tanopet as he was known, who came and went as it pleased him, bartering skins for food and tobacco, and who claimed to be the son of a Wamesit chief; a claim very generally discredited. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that David added a good seasoning of salt to the tales of Indian unfriendliness, nor that to-night he was little inclined to lay the burning of William Vernham’s house at the door of the savages.
And yet, since where there is much smoke there must be some fire, he realized that Obid’s surmise might hold more than prejudice. Obid was firmly of the belief that the Indian was little if any better than the beast of the forest and had no sympathy with the Reverend John Eliot’s earnest endeavors to convert them to Christianity, arguing that an Indian had no soul and that none, not even John Eliot, could save what didn’t exist! Nathan Lindall held opposite views both of the Indian and of John Eliot’s efforts, and many a long and warm argument took place
