A few days after this first interview, Samoset brought some other friendly Indians to Plymouth, including a certain Squanto, who had been taken to England by Weymouth fifteen long years before, and brought back by Sir Ferdinando Gorges. The presence of Samoset and Squanto in their midst was fruitful of the best results to the colonists. By their means, a treaty, offensive and defensive, was made between the white men and the greatest chief of the neighborhood, a stately warrior named Massasoit, dwelling at a village on Rhode Island; and, free from the fear of surprises, the colonists were now able to extend their plantations and sow seed for future needs. Small parties were detailed to explore the bay, the site of the modern Boston was visited, and the close of the first summer found the affairs of Plymouth in a very flourishing condition. In November, 1621, a reinforcement of thirty-five emigrants arrived from England in the ship _Fortune_, and the first fruits of the labors of the early colonists, consisting of timber and furs, were sent home in her. The second winter passed over successfully, but the spring of 1622 opened gloomily. A terrible massacre of the whites had taken place in Virginia, and, encouraged by the success of their brethren in the south, the Narragansetts of Massachusetts sent a message of defiance to the colonists of Plymouth, thinking that the time had come to possess themselves of the goods of the intruders in their land. The war-challenge of the red men consisted in the sending to the camp of the enemy of a bundle of arrows bound together with a rattlesnake’s skin; the reply of the English was the return of the same skin full of powder and ball――a silent indication that they were ready for the arrows, which the Indians did not fail rightly to interpret. A lull ensued, and the English were beginning to hope that the real exchange of arrows and shot would not come off, when there arrived from England a little party of emigrants who were not Puritans, and who, while they consumed the stores of their fellow-countrymen, did nothing to help to replace them, and, moreover, imbittered their relations with the Indians by stealing their corn and carrying off their women. After much mischief had been done, the governor, Bradford, who had taken the place of Carver on his death in the previous spring, succeeded in weeding out the evil-doers from among his flock, but not, unfortunately, in warding off the results of their misconduct. At their young settlement of Weymouth, on the northern shores of the Bay of Plymouth, the new colonists behaved in a manner which excited alike the anger and contempt of the natives. It was decided that they should be exterminated, and as their white comrades at Plymouth would doubtless try to avenge them, these must be slain at the same time.