While the boats were sounding, the conspirators were at their usual mischief. Indian chiefs had come on board. They were taken down to the cabin and made gloriously drunk. All went merrily till one Indian fell insensible. The rest scampered in panic and came back with offerings of wampum—their most precious possession—for the chief’s ransom. When they secured him alive, they brought more presents—wampum and venison—in gratitude. To this escapade of the mischief-making crew, moccasin rumor added a thousand exaggerations which came down in Indian tradition to the beginning of the last century. After the drunken frenzy—legend says—the white men made a great oration promising to come again. When they returned the next year, they asked for as much land as the hide of a bullock would cover. The Indians granted it, but the white men cut the buffalo hide to strips narrow as a child’s finger and so encompassed all the land of Manahat (Manhattan). The whites then built a fort for trade. The name of the fort was New Amsterdam. It grew to be a mighty city. Such are Indian legends of New York’s beginnings. They probably have as much truth as the story of Rome and the wolf. On September 23, the _Half Moon_ turned her prow south. The Hudson lay in all its autumn glory—a glassy sheet walled by the painted woods, now gorgeous with the frost tints of gold and scarlet and carmine. The ship anchored each night and the crew wandered ashore hatching pirate plots. Finally they presented their ultimatum to Hudson—they would slay him if he dared to steer for Holland. Weakened by the death of Colman, the English were helpless against the Dutch mutineers. Perhaps they, too, were not averse to seizing the Company’s ship and becoming sea rovers along the shores of such a land. At least one of them turned pirate the next voyage. Twice, the _Half Moon_ was run aground—at Catskill and at Esopus—probably intentionally, or because Hudson dared not send his faithful Englishmen ahead to sound. [Illustration: Hudson’s Third Voyage 1609, Discovery of Hudson River]