Just how hungry the Pilgrims were during these trying times is less clear. Provisions had been moved ashore from the ship and stored in the common house. That these were not ample for the group is suggested by numerous references in their journal to the other foods they acquired—on one occasion they killed an eagle, ate it, and said that it was remarkably like mutton. The appearance of a single herring on the shore in January raised hopes of more, but they “got but one cod; [they] wanted small hooks,” and this was eaten by the master of the ship “to his supper.” In at least one case they found themselves in competition with both Indians and wild animals: “He found also a good deer killed; the savages had cut off the horns, and a wolf was eating of him; how he came there we could not conceive.” But it would seem that, while food was never plentiful, actual starvation was held at bay. Yet if death was a constant companion, hunger was almost certainly a regular visitor to them. The winter gave way to the warming sun, and on March 3, 1621, “the wind was south, the morning misty, but towards noon warm and fair weather; the birds sang in the woods most pleasantly.” With the coming of spring, there was a welling up of hope. On March 16 a remarkable thing occurred: “... there presented himself a savage, which caused an alarm. He very boldly came all alone and along the houses straight to the rendezvous, where we intercepted him, not suffering him to go in, as undoubtedly he would, out of boldness. He saluted us in English and bade us welcome....” The appearance of an English-speaking Indian was truly a source of wonder to the Pilgrims; indeed, it was thought to be providential. This first Indian to come among the Englishmen was Samoset, whose home was in Maine. He told the Pilgrims of yet another English-speaking Indian, Squanto by name, who had more fluency in the language than he. Small wonder that he did, for Squanto had been kidnapped by one Thomas Hunt in 1614, sold into slavery in Spain only to escape to England, where he found a home with the treasurer of the Newfoundland Company. He made at least one round trip to America and back before returning again in 1618; jumping ship, he made his way back to his home at Plymouth only to find that his people had been wiped out by the disease of the year before. The role of these two Indians in the first years of the Pilgrims’ life in America was immense. Before March had run its course, they had arranged a meeting between the English and Massasoit, the chief of the local Wampanoags, which resulted in the concluding of a treaty of peace and mutual assistance. It was Squanto who instructed the Pilgrims in the ways of planting corn with herring taken from the local brooks where they ran thick in the spring. This first corn crop was to assume a critical role in their life before the year was out.