Priscilla was strong and she helped her father in his work during that long hard winter. There was plenty for all to do, but many had not the strength to accomplish what was needed. There was a great deal of illness and very little good food. The weather made it almost impossible for the men to hunt or to find wild fruits, and they had neglected to bring fishing-tackle with them. Their provisions were eked out with shellfish, but it was hard to gather these in the cold water. Other colonies in the new world had already been forced to give up their homes in fear of starvation, but this band held on, although half their number died, and at one time there were only seven who were not sick. Fortunately the Indians gave them little trouble. One day one of them walked into the village and spent the night there, showing friendliness, although Captain Standish watched him closely, having little faith in his pretensions. A day or two later he returned bringing five others, and then there came another named Tis quantum, who had once been taken as a prisoner to London, and who understood something of the strange white people and their ways. With his aid a treaty was made with Massasoit, the chief of the Indians in that part of the country, and each side agreed to live in harmony and concord with the other. Many of the Indians already had a superstitious fear of the men from across the sea, not only on account of their wonderful "fire-tubes" but for another reason. Some Indians had a few years before captured a French trading-ship, and killed all the crew but five, whom they kept as prisoners. One of these had warned the redmen that the God of the white people would not let these wrongs go without some punishment, and very soon afterward pestilence had broken out on the coast and killed many of the Indians who lived there. Those who survived recalled the Frenchman's words and believed that pestilence was a weapon like the "fire-tube" which the white men kept in their camps to use against their enemies. Therefore they were very careful how they treated these new arrivals who had settled at Accomac.