But at this moment a little group of men hastening from the fishing huts marking the present site of Gloucester, appeared upon the scene, and in their leader both Standish and Bridges recognized Roger Conant, a friend and sometime visitor of Plymouth, who immediately upon arrival of the Anne had gone to join some friends fishing at Monhegan, and now, with them, was establishing a sister station at Gloucester. Warned by the Indians that Hewes had seized the Plymouth fishing-stage, and seeing the Little James entering the bay, Conant hastened to collect his friends and present himself upon the scene of action to act as mediator, or ally of Plymouth, as circumstances might direct. "We have come none too soon, men!" exclaimed Conant breathlessly as at a run he rounded the headland closing in the cove, and saw upon the barricaded staging Hewes and his men blowing at their matches, while Standish, his eyes aflame and an angry smile upon his lips, sprang ashore and hurried his men out of the boat. "Now glad am I to see you, Master Conant," cried Bridges, already waiting upon the beach, and hastening toward him he said in a lower voice. "Our captain hath got on his fighting cap, and thrown discretion to the winds. 'T will be an ill day for Plymouth if her men are led on to kill Englishmen fishing with the king's license." "Ay indeed will it. Bide a bit till I can parley with both thy captain and Hewes, who is not an ill fellow if one handleth him gingerly." "Gingerly goeth not smoothly with peppery, and 't is but half the truth to call our captain that," said Bridges with a dry smile, as Conant passed him to reach Standish who was marshaling his men upon the sands. Too long it were to detail the arguments of the man of peace, the delicate manipulation of the tempers of both parties, the concessions wrung from the one side and the other, until after several hours' debate Standish moodily said,-- "Well Conant, sith you put it so, sith you make it out that by enforcing the colony's right I do but attack the colony's life, I yield, for I am sworn defender and champion of Plymouth and her prosperity, and never shall it be said that Myles Standish preferred his own quarrel to the well-being of those he had sworn to protect. To leave yon fellow unscathed for his insolence, sits like a blister on a raw wound, but go and make what terms you can with him. I suppose you require not that I abandon the colony's property altogether to him." "Nay, nay, Captain, but I am thinking that my comrades and I, with some of the Little James' men and Master Hewes' company, should clap to and run up another staging in a few hours either for the new-comers or the Plymouth men"-- "For Plymouth if you would pleasure me. I would not my men should take the leavings of yon rabble at any price," interrupted Standish haughtily.