The two Indian chiefs of whom we hear most in the early history of Connecticut were Uncas, sachem of the Mohegans, and Miantonomo, sachem of the Narragansetts. A great Indian battle called the "Battle of the Plain" took place once, near Norwich, between these rival tribes led by these two rival chieftains. The Mohegans were a part of the Pequot tribe, and the Pequots, or "Gray Foxes," were the fiercest, most cruel, and warlike of all the Indians who roamed through the forests of Connecticut before the English came. The white settlers soon had trouble with them, and when the Pequot War, which was a war between the settlers and the Indians, began, in 1637, Uncas came with some of his Mohegan warriors and offered to guide the English troops through the woods to the Pequot fort. Now Uncas was himself a Pequot by birth and belonged to the royal family, and it seems strange that he should not take part with his own people. But not long before this he had rebelled against the chief sachem, Sassacus, and had tried to make himself independent. "He grew proud and treacherous to the Pequot sachem," says the old chronicle, "and the Pequot sachem was very angry and sent up some soldiers and drove him out of his country." Afterward, when "he humbled himself to the Pequot sachem, he received permission to live in his own country again." But he was restless and dissatisfied. He was said to be of great size and very strong; he was brave too, and had a good deal of influence among the Indians. The settlers needed his help, yet they were half afraid to trust him, knowing that he would be "faithful to them as the jackal is faithful to the lion, not because it loves the lion, but because it gains something by remaining in his company." Before he would accept him as a guide, Lieutenant Lion Gardiner, commander of the fort at Saybrook, said to him, "You say you will help Captain Mason, but I will first see it; therefore send twenty men to Bass River, for there went six Indians there in a canoe, fetch them, dead or alive; and you shall go with Mason or else you shall not." Uncas went off with his men and found these Indians. He killed four of them and brought back another as a prisoner, and the colonists, feeling more certain of his fidelity, took him with them on their expedition.