If they bounced against his cheeks, it meant that he was running too fast. If they made no motion, he went like the turtle. But if he kept a strong, steady pace, he would feel them swing in rhythm with his gait, and he would go fast yet with dignity.

Because there were fewer now to use the path, much thicket had grown over it, but Autumnsquam was young and strong and wore his winter breeches, and what he could not step over, he went through. For much of the morning, the path took him along the bluff, so that he could watch the white men’s ship and keep himself ahead of it.

Then the bluff gave way to long spits of sand that protected the Bay of the Nausets. The path turned inland along the shore, and Autumnsquam could no longer see the ship. This worried him some, but he kept his copper pendants swinging steadily, stopped only for a handful of pemmican, and soon smelled the cookfires of his village.

At word of the ship, the men took their bows and went to the shore. The women took the children and hid in the forest. And the Nausets waited the day through. But the white men did not come.

Then the setting sun burned through the clouds, sending long rays, like arrows, across the world. The sandspit that formed the eastern shore of their bay glimmered in the golden light. Then the arrows of sun struck something else. At first, Autumnsquam could not tell what it was, this thing that seemed to glide along the rim of the dunes. He was taken by the beauty of it and wondered if it was some new god, come to save them from the white men. Then he knew. It was the white men. Their ship was beyond the spit, with only its wings showing above the sand. It had gone south and was now turning north. The white men were looking for a place to land.

iv.

November 10. Yesterday, near dawn, we raised the sand heights of Cape Cod, dead on the forty-second parallel. Master Coppin, who has sailed these waters, said they were a fine landmark—as they proved to be—and no more than a degree north of Hudson’s River. There was prayer, some rejoicing, and then dispute.
Some wished to land here, but the elders determined to make straight for the Hudson, where they have charter. So we tacked south and were seeking to turn the elbow of the Cape when we fell amongst shoals and currents so swift that the sand billowed off the bottom as we passed. Coppin had warned of this place, and I had read of it in a Dutch rutter, yet were we near lost when the tide took the ebb and the breakers roared to life around us. The only sound louder was the praying, which I did not discourage.
With night coming and the wind fading, I told them we had no choice but to come about. Else the tide would carry us onto a shoal, where the waves would make short work of us.
At this, Ezra Bigelow grumbled that I was in the pay of the Dutch, who wish also to settle at Hudson’s River. I am rankled. This Bigelow impugns me and henceforth walks a thin line.
We beat north’ard now. Afore dawn, we enter Cape Cod Harbor, safest anchorage in the Americas. There is no more talk of Hudson’s River. We are low on beer, and the passengers need solid ground ’neath their feet.